


Helix Continuum

by paleogymnast



Series: Helix 'verse [3]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, F/F, Genocide, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-05
Updated: 2012-07-05
Packaged: 2017-11-09 07:15:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 119,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/452781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paleogymnast/pseuds/paleogymnast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Almost a year ago, all life on Earth was nearly lost at the hands of a greedy, insidious foe. But Captain Jensen Ackles and Colonel Misha Collins thwarted that plot, and Earth remains free. This should be a happy time. The threat of war is finally over, Jensen and Misha are heroes, and the humans colluding with the enemy have been apprehended. It should be a happy time, but it is not. </p><p>From the ashes of the old war rises a new threat from within--a group jealous and suspicious of the "powers" and "skills" Jensen, Misha, and many of their fellow warriors possess. Seeing Jensen and Misha as a threat to humanity, this new enemy will not rest until they and everyone like them is neutralized. Only then, they say, will Earth be safe. In the midst of a secret revolution under the constant threat of death, Jensen, Misha, and their friends undertake a journey of self-discovery as they define life, love, and identity, and struggle to forge a future for their people. And the journey is only the beginning...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a continuation of _Springboard Helix_ , my entry for the 2011 [spn-j2-bigbang. You don’t need to have read that story to understand this one, but you may want to. You can find _Springboard Helix_ ](http://spn-j2-bigbang)[here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/219942).
> 
> I would like to thank my wonderful artist [off-the-post18](http://off-the-post18.livejournal.com) for going above and beyond with the lovely artwork, icons, and chapter dividers she created for this fic! Thank you so much! You can find her work imbedded throughout this story, or visit the [here](http://off-the-post18.livejournal.com/79460.html). Please check out the art, and comment on it! It is awesome.
> 
> I would also like to thank my wonderful betas, [leisa-phoenix](http://leisa-phoenix.livejournal.com) and Carlos. Thank you especially for putting up with my horrible schedule, nonlinear writing, tendency to miss deadlines, and all my other bad habits. This story would not have been possible without you. I have tinkered with this since I got it back from them, so all remaining mistakes and typos are mine. 
> 
> This is a science fiction alternate universe that is very loosely set in the SPN-RPF (Supernatural Real Person Fiction) universe. While I have borrowed the names and likenesses of many actors (and occasionally select family members), this is a work of fiction, and the people you see in the story are nothing like the folks whose names and faces I’m borrowing. No offense is intended. There are also numerous original characters sprinkled throughout this story, some of whom are loosely based on actors and others who are purely a creation of my imagination. 
> 
> Finally, I would like to say a few words about the content of this story. Many of the themes I’ve chosen are dark and unpleasant. This story is a journey of character identity, self-discovery, and self-determination. I have attempted to handle the issues with sensitivity. That being said, some of the themes in this story may be triggering, so please read the warnings, and if you have any questions, just ask, I will be happy to let you know if the story contains a particular trigger if you are worried.
> 
> Most of all, thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy the story.

  


**Helix Continuum**

_Prologue_

The click-clack of high heels on tile echoed down the corridor, following the doctor wherever she walked. Here and there, technicians, nurses, and fellow doctors looked up at the sound of her approach, but none of them smiled or said “hello.” They all looked away as soon as they saw who it was, all a little too intent on their work, a little too studious in their concentration. They certainly didn’t look at the folder she carried in her left hand. Instead they seemed to shy away, as if the contents of the folder were a deadly contagion instead of mere words and figures on paper. 

Their behavior amused her. They were right to fear the folder, but not for the reasons they thought. The folder held cure, not contagion, but she could understand how some might see it differently.

The echoes continued, as she stepped into the secure elevator, pausing to scan her thumbprint and retina after swiping her badge. The echoing clickity-clack followed her when she exited the elevator and down the reflective black halls of the secure level. 

She passed locked door after locked door and junction upon junction of hallways. A maze. But she knew the path, and with every resonant footstep she drew nearer to her goal, her heart beating faster, her breath coming quicker. 

Down here the base looked nothing like the hospital it purported to be, and everything like the secret seat of power it really was. It was invigorating.

The twisting hallways led her to the general’s door. She knocked.

“Enter.”

“I have the latest results,” she said, the words tripping on each other in their rush to leave her mouth, as she held out the file folder for the General to take.

“And?” The General raised one eyebrow.

“And it’s a success. Twenty-two subjects. All born human and exposed to the alien mutagenic agent later in life. We began administering the first dose on Tuesday and 0600 this morning we were completed the third.”

The General’s head snapped up. “That fast? You completed the process in under a week?” The General sounded skeptical.

“Yes, sir, my team has been working round the clock to streamline the process.” She didn’t take offence. She couldn’t. The general had every reason to wonder. The last trial had taken over a month.

“And it’s a success, you say?”

The doctor smiled at the jibe. “Take a look for yourself.”

The looked, started, and looked again, her stern expression shifting to one of wonderment. “These readings... The subjects really show no traces...”

“None whatsoever.”

“They’re—human.”

“Yes,” the doctor agreed. “There are still some side effects to sort out,” she added with a shrug.

“Such as?” 

“Mild memory loss,” the doctor reassured hastily.

For the first time since she’d met the General, a smile spread across the General’s face. It wasn’t pleasant, but it showed every ounce of lethality she possessed. “I’d say memory loss could be more of a benefit than a side effect.”

“If you say so, sir.” 

The General laughed, rising from her seat and stepping around her desk to shake the doctor’s hand. “Congratulations. Well done. You have permission to move to phase three.”

It was the doctor’s turn to smile. Phase three had been the goal all along, her prize...

“Start small though.”

The doctor’s face fell.

The General clapped her on the shoulder. “None of that, you’ll get your prize in due course. I just want to make certain the procedure is flawless before you try it on Captain Ackles.”

The doctor perked up, maybe she could—

“Or his husband,” the General added.

The doctor’s smile faltered again. Waiting was so hard.

“Patience, my dear. When the procedure is ready, I will deliver Ackles into your waiting arms.” She squeezed the doctor’s arm, the gesture equal parts threat and reassurance. “For now, why don’t you try that awful sycophantic linguist that used to be on Col. Kane’s team. He should be an excellent guinea pig.”

It was a start, it wasn’t exactly what she wanted, but she would get there... Soon, Jensen Ackles would be hers.

_Chapter 1_

Jensen stopped to look out the viewport. Pink-tinged wisps of cirrocumulus clouds dissipated in the shuttle’s wake as the blur of green and brown began to resolve itself into the more familiar arrangement of treetops and trunks. The ruddy sunlight cast bronzed reflections on the world below, glinting off distant metallic spires and closer piles of amethyst boulders. Out of the corner of one eye copper light glinted and danced on the crests of jade green waves where they lapped against a lapis and obsidian beach. Spots of intense pinks and purples speckling the blue-green grass caught Jensen’s attention, reminding him of the kind of mountain wildflower gardens on Earth that featured so heavily in the film version of _The Sound of Music_ … and also, come to think of it, in _Attack of the Clones_.

The sci-fi association snapped Jensen out of the trance into which he’d drifted, bringing into focus the sterile white glossy glow of the here and now. Misha chuckled in the background. Ah, so he had picked up on Jensen’s train of thought. 

_Star Wars prequels, really?_ Misha’s amused thought drifted across the connection between them.

Jensen brushed it off, mentally swatting it as he would a fly, but Misha’s mind pressed against his more insistently and with a distinct undercurrent of concern. 

_I’m fine_ , Jensen stressed, tugging at the inner glee he’d felt moments before to show it hadn’t dissipated. _Just trying to be serious. Got a job to do._ He wasn’t sure if it would be enough to calm Misha. His husband hovered like a hawk (or Vapterian spring bat, a tiny insectivore that behaved like a hovering version of an oxpecker). He had been plagued with unceasing worry about Jensen’s mental and physical wellbeing ever since they’d embarked on their current mission. Well, it had started long before that, but Jensen’s mind was still doing its best to avoid that experience, his thoughts tangling in an unbalanced dance around _the incident_. Jensen carefully avoided myriad recollections that would send him tumbling into the abyss. Any thought trending along that tack would undoubtedly spike, not assuage, Misha’s concern. 

Either Jensen did a good enough job of projecting playful seriousness or Misha’s mission preparations had distracted him. No sooner had Jensen thought _job_ than the weight of Misha’s telepathic presence lifted, slipping into its familiar comforting background murmur; white noise to soothe Jensen’s soul.

Holding back on the sigh of relief, Jensen turned his attention back to the outside world. On the planet below he could see fields of wildflowers in colors so vibrant they jarred in contrast with the bland boarding atrium of the Fropali shuttle. The shuttle’s walls, floor, and ceiling blended into one another with smooth curves. Even the transition from floor to wall was difficult to see. The floor pitched just beyond where Jensen stood, its gentle slope would become more dramatic when the boarding ramp was lowered.

The atrium was also silent and perfectly odorless lacking even the slightly metallic tang of a common shipboard life-support system. When he pressed his hand against the rippled section of wall beneath the viewport, he could feel a split-second where the surface read his body temperature and immediately adjusted its output to a precise 97 degrees Fahrenheit as his skin settled against it.

The atrium was designed to be nonthreatening, to comfort visitors, and aid in negotiations. The walls weren’t just white, they were completely lacking in “color” even in portions of the electromagnetic spectrum far outside a human’s—or Marker’s—vision. The system wasn’t perfect—he’d heard some nauseating and nerve-wracking stories from Foalar—the Fropali ambassador on whose shuttle he now stood, about sentient species who were offended or threatened from the _lack_ of sensory input, but it worked more often than not. And chances were they’d need it on today’s mission. 

The Ecati, the people they were visiting on the colorful planet below, were exceedingly wary of outsiders; cautious, paranoid, and skeptical to the extreme, but for good reason. The Licinians had turned the original Ecati homeworld into a ball of obsidian slag with a toxic atmosphere in the name of harvesting its chemical components. The few Ecati who survived had done so by chance, but many had been close enough to witness the devastation and bore the guilt of being unable to have saved more of their people. The refugees had survived primarily because the Licinians had _misjudged_ their society, believing the Ecati incapable of interplanetary travel. That was roughly 200 Earth years ago, and the Ecati had struggled ever since. Their numbers were so reduced they’d almost gone extinct. Disease, depression, and a diminished gene pool complicated their adjustment to their new home.

The Ecati would be the twenty-seventh group of survivors that Jensen and Misha had visited since their mission began. As the Licinians and representatives of Earth went through treaty talks, investigations, and hearings with a contingent of Fropali mediators, Jensen and Misha were spearheading the investigation into the extent of the Licinians’ xenocidal attacks. ORDA, the Offworld Research and Defense Agency, had tapped them for the job because of their unique qualifications. Jensen and Misha were survivors of the Licinians’ attack on Earth, descendants of rogue Licinian genetic engineering, and two of the individuals to actually stop the Licinian plot and save Earth.

Jensen was grateful for the assignment because it gave him and Misha time away from the front lines to recover from their injuries.

The shuttle set down in a small clearing, rocking gently as it settled and gravity transferred from the ship to the ambient gravity. The tugging sensation in the pit of Jensen’s stomach signaled local gravity was a little higher than Earth norm, but not so high it impeded movement, not even for Jensen’s compromised spine.

The hatch opened, lowering the ramp at Jensen’s feet. A smothering wave of wet, sticky air rolled its way into the ship. Jensen’s lungs caught and spasmed as they adjusted to the air’s heaviness, but soon relaxed. Despite the high moisture content, the atmospheric composition wasn’t that different from Earth’s—a little more nitrogen, slightly lower oxygen, and a larger than expected percentage of argon, if he recalled correctly. He’d been practicing, but he wasn’t quite that good at analyzing atmospheric composition on the fly. With his breaths coming more easily, the aromas of cedar, earth, and mossiness assaulted his nostrils. _Ambassador Foalar should be quite comfortable here_ , he thought.

Although the Fropali were the great peacekeepers—and sometimes police—of the galaxy, they were not chameleons. They could not adapt to the environmental conditions of every species they helped. Sometimes the disadvantage served them well. As Foalar described it, having one’s mediator at an apparent disadvantage quickly erased concerns the mediator would try to lord it over the warring parties. 

But sometimes, it was too much of a disadvantage. bulky environmental suits, restrictive protective gear, filters that interfered with hearing and vision—all were conditions that could lead to disaster. Foalar had shared those stories too, of peace talks that fell apart and couldn’t he resumed until hundreds of thousands more had died; scenarios in which the negotiating parties found the Fropali’s protective gear frightening; nightmare scenarios where one party took advantage of the Fropali’s partial incapacitation to poison, kidnap, torture, or murder other delegates. 

Jensen had been fortunate so far; he and Misha hadn’t encountered anything worse than shy, rattled survivors who feared retribution from the Licinians for telling the truth. But then again, this series of missions were by no means ordinary, and Jensen and Misha were along for very specific reasons—not the least of which because they too had suffered at the hands of the Licinians to the point of nearly giving their lives to avoid seeing their planet wiped out. Foalar had explained it was their personal sacrifices in particular that led her to request them for this mission. 

Jensen had thought his best friend, Jared, might be a better choice than he. After all, Jared had an extra decade of combat experience, while Jensen was still new to being a “space marine.” But Jared’s injuries had been caused by one of their own people—another Marker from Earth. Kane had been acting on the orders of a human who’d tried to save himself by making a deal with the Licinians when he shot Jared, but it wasn’t quite the same. And despite Jared’s remarkable recovery, the doctors had still been very hesitant to see him doing anything _risky_. 

So it was Misha and Jensen who had been drafted, and for the past six months, they’d played their parts on a whirlwind tour of the galaxy, or at least the who’s who of survivors and refugees of the Licinian attacks.

Of course, Jensen knew the _other_ reason Foalar had requested their presence on the mission. Unlike the Fropali, they could survive, unaided, in nearly any environment the refugees lived. They’d both found it a bit odd at first that every group of refugees they’d met, every planet they’d visited, were all compatible with Misha and Jensen’s adaptive physiology. Surely there were some sentient species out there, who evolved in habitats outside the range even a Marker could handle. 

But then it hit them, the realization sliding slick, sick, and fully formed into their shared consciousness. The habitats of those other species would never make good targets for the Licinians. The Licinians depended on advance teams to scout their target planets and set up machinery to _convert_ them. Rendering the habitats inhospitable to the native sentients, but habitable by Licinians and useful for annexation or resource harvesting. And anywhere the Licinians could survive… so could Markers. The rogue Licinians who had _engineered_ the Marker genome had based it off their own DNA. 

Jensen wasn’t sure which of them had put the pieces together, he or Misha, or if it was a combined effort, something they’d pieced together only through their telepathic bond, another artifact of their engineered heritage and another trait they shared with the Licinians.

Misha joined Jensen at the viewport. “Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

Jensen nodded, turning away from the scene outside as he heard Foalar approach.

“Jensen, Misha,” Foalar said, acknowledging each of them in turn with a bob of her head. “Let us begin then.” She strode on short, furry legs toward the open ramp, sliding between Jensen and Misha effortlessly.

When she was a meter from the bottom of the ramp, they moved to follow her, stepping out onto the ramp in tandem, perfectly in sync. Jensen couldn’t help thinking they must look like something out of a _Star Wars_ film.

As they stepped off the end of the ramp, Jensen noticed the representatives from the Ecati. There were two of them standing at the edge of the clearing opposite the ship. To Jensen’s eye, they strongly resembled meerkats, only on a roughly human scale. They were taller than Foalar, standing about five feet tall on their hind legs, but much narrower, and more spindly than any of the Fropali. Their posture suggested they could easily drop into a quadripedal stance for added speed and agility. 

It surprised Jensen to find a species like the Ecati living in such a humid, wet, forested planet. He felt like an idiot a moment later when he realized the Ecati’s current habitat meant little in the scope of their history. This world wasn’t their _home_ , but the closest approximation they could find. It met the bare necessities of their existence, and it might be horribly uncomfortable, but it was theirs, and it was better than the oblivion the Licinians had intended to leave them with. Jensen shuddered.

Misha reached out through their bond and settled him with a mental hug. 

Jensen wished he could lose himself in the phantom caress. It could have been them. It very nearly was. Humans—Marker and nonMarker alike—had been seconds away from becoming permanent refugees, scattered to the four winds of the galaxy with no place to call their own, the common touchstone of their history lost forever. Jensen had tried to imagine what it would be like, knowing he could never go back, that there was no Earth to go back to, realizing he’d never see another magnolia tree or cat or seagull again, understanding the Space Needle and the Empire State building and every other landmark from his past lived on only in the memories of a handful of survivors. 

His mind would recognize the blatant analogy to the fate of Vulcan in the alternate Star Trek timeline, curse his inappropriate imagination, and count his blessings it hadn’t come to that. But no matter how hard he’d tried, he couldn’t imagine—

—Until now. When he looked into the wide, round eyes of the Ecati representatives, he could see the pain and sorrow of their people staring back at him, feel their pain. No matter what happened, short of the reversal of time and the alteration of history, the Ecati alive today would never know true joy. They would be forever filled with the sorrow of their loss, the constant reminder of what had happened and how their universe would never be the same. The bulk of the Ecati representatives’ sorrow was directed at the younger generations—those who had never seen or would never remember their world and people as it had been. The Ecati lifespan was long enough that even now, a handful of elders remained who had known the homeworld. All of them—young and old alike—now survived in discomfort, aliens on an alien world.

The wave of grief that washed over Jensen nearly sent him to his knees. Beside him, he felt Misha waver. The burden of living with that loss could be unbearable, especially for a species with a shared consciousness like the Ecati. Jensen realized the Ecati weren’t telepathic in the same way as Markers were, but they shared an empathic space and a less-verbal form of mental communication.

A wave of fear, anxiety, and hatred emanated from the Ecati and collided with him. 

Misha visibly flinched.

Foalar seemed not to have noticed. Or, Jensen mused, maybe she just didn’t care. Maybe she had resolved to proceed as if the refugees they were interviewing hadn’t just reacted reflexively as if they’d been slapped in the face.

“Representative Ak’nobi, Councilor Rahk’mai’tek,” Foalar said to the two refugees in near-perfect Ecatese, her Fropali accent lending a lyrical lilt to the language. “I am Ambassador Foalar pri Sentani of the Fropali. With me are Colonel Misha Collins and Captain Jensen Ackles of the peoples of Earth,” she paused, letting the words sink in. “Thank you for inviting us to hear your story and permitting us passage onto your new world. Your comfort and security is of paramount importance to us. If ever you feel we are intruding on your space or sovereignty, you need only ask, and we will remove ourselves.” Foalar made a peculiar expression that made Jensen think she was trying to stare into the representative’s and councilor’s souls. 

“We are collecting stories of the survivors of the Licinian genocides. I am here as a representative of the Fropali Central Government, which is responsible for enforcing the Sovereign Species Territories Compact and the Licinian Anti-Expansion and Conservation Treaty. My people also bear the responsibility of prosecuting violations of those treaties. Colonel Collins and Captain Ackles are attending as facilitators. They are both survivors of a Licinian plot to annihilate their people and terraform their homeworld. Misha and Jensen are both skilled linguists and may provide additional communication support if requested.”

Speech done, Foalar, spread her hands nonthreateningly, palms up, and waited for the Ecati to make the next move.

Jensen wanted very badly in that moment to disappear. Judging by the empathic backlash he’d felt from the Ecati, their presence was doing more harm than good, but he didn’t want to make the situation worse by displaying cowardice or disrespect or any of myriad interpretations the Ecati could have if he and Misha suddenly excused themselves. He settled for lowering his eyes, opening his mind, and relaxing. It was easier said than done, but at least this way the Ecati might glean some information about his mental state and mood, and might stop viewing him and Misha as threats.

The silence stretched on, and Jensen was acutely aware of the sweat dripping down his temple, pooling in the small of his back and saturating the protective vest.

He could sense Misha’s discomfort and growing concern about Jensen’s well-being, but still the Ecati said nothing.

“They are so alike those who destroyed our world. Is it the ambassador’s intent to insult us and discount our suffering? Perhaps their presence is meant to keep us in line and ensure we do not tell the damning truths of the chameleons’ treachery, hatred, and deceit,” the slighter Ecati, Ak’nobi, said in a hissing whisper to his companion.

Jensen flinched, his back snapping straight, the sweat puddling on his skin suddenly icy cold. He _knew_ the hatred in that tone. It was hardly the first time he’d been insulted for being a Marker, and far from the only time the refugees they’d been sent interview had regarded he and Misha with contempt—many of the Licinians’ victims resented them for surviving, for having a homeworld to return to, when the refugees worlds had been changed beyond recognition, the vast majority of their people slaughtered by the chameloid species’ sociopathic, genocidal government.

However, it was the first time someone had attacked him for being too _Licinian_ , and the hatred he felt rolling off the Ecati representatives was scarily reminiscent of the behavior the anti-Marker humans within ORDA had expressed. _General Lehne’s faction_. He shuddered again at the recollection. Those people had kidnapped, shot, and tortured him. They planned to dissect his brain for information about his heritage. All so they could turn over what they’d learned to their Licinian masters in the vain and selfish hope of buying passage away from a doomed Earth, even while the Licinians prepared to annihilate human and Marker alike.

Foalar took the comment in stride, but it was Misha who responded first.

“Funny that you see the commonalities of our shared heritage with the Licinians,” he began bitterly. “All they see is our differences, how unnatural we are. The same goes for many humans—that’s the dominant sentient species on our planet. A lot of them think we’re unnatural freaks. Abhorrent. They want to condemn us for existing, even though we had no say in how our people were engineered; even though we put our lives on the line and fought, and sacrificed, and died to keep Earth alive for them, to defeat the Licinians, to stop them from destroying another planet, another people, ever again.” Misha’s fists clenched at his sides and he took a step closer to Jensen. “For you to judge us for bearing some resemblance to our mutual enemy is to discount and discredit all that we and our people have experienced, is to stoop to the same level and commit the same crimes for which you condemn them.”

Misha’s outburst surprised Jensen. He’d known Misha still harbored resentment for the treatment Jensen had endured at the hands of General Lehne’s people, but Misha’s mind was suffused with the righteous anger and indignation of a victim. Misha’s was upset for _himself_ , not just on behalf of Jensen.

And Jensen hadn’t known, but he should have. When Jensen had first learned about ORDA, Misha had shared his despair over his injuries and the isolation he’d experienced when adapting to life in the organization. If Misha had felt despair then, why wouldn’t he continue to feel the same? Yet despite their bond, Misha had managed to keep his pain concealed.

“I am most sorry, Colonel,” the other Ecati, Councilor Rahk’mai’tek, began. The emotions pouring off him had shifted. His remorse was patent, even if his expression was hard to interpret. “We have clearly allowed our perceptions to cloud our judgment. Please forgive us. We can see now the sincerity of your words. Your profile is just so similar to our oppressors...” He spread his long-fingered hands wide.

“It seems pretty clear our impressions of our surroundings differ greatly,” Jensen managed.

Both Ecati regarded him for a moment, heads cocking to the side in curious contemplation. The behavior was so _human_ it was ironic given their communication difficulties.

“Yes,” Rahk’mai’tek, agreed.

“Forgive me,” Ak’nobi pleaded. “Our ancestors learned long ago not to trust our eyes. Other senses reveal far more useful information, but that information is fallible if we allow our prejudices to frame what we sense. I saw your minds—the mindtalk and bodytalk, your adaptability to your surroundings—almost identical to the chameloids’. I assumed you must use your abilities to deceive. But I sense no hostility or deception from you, only pain, sorrow, and fear. Sensing deeper,” he took a step towards them, hand outstretched, “I can see your inability to change shape and appearance. I can see the influence of your other heritage, the monoforms with their verbal communication. I see now we,” he pointed at Jensen, then Misha, then himself, and finally Rahk’mai’tek, have much more in common with each other than either of our peoples has with our enemy. But feeling that, seeing that is difficult. The pain of loss among our people was so great that it has transferred to every generation. Even now, our youngest members still receive that pain, just in a more muted form.”

The nausea that gripped Jensen’s stomach this time definitely wasn’t caused by the gravity. He had never before contemplated what it would be like for a species of empaths to live through such a destructive event. If he was understanding Ak’nobi correctly, they had no ability to buffer or block their emotions, and if generations of training and culture taught the Ecati to trust and value emotional perceptions… Jensen shuddered, his knees suddenly going weak, his body numb.

Misha closed the distance between them and caught Jensen before he could fall. “Easy,” he murmured in Jensen’s ear. “You okay?”

Was he? Jensen ran a hasty self-assessment even as he felt the levels of procogitol in his body normalize. He’d put so much energy into processing the empathic bleedoff from the Ecati that he’d burned through all of his neurotransmitter reserves, leaving his body without any for its neuromuscular workaround. “Yeah,” he answered at last, nodding. “I’m so sorry,” he added to Ak’nobi and Rahk’mai’tek. “It seems our peoples have much to learn from one another. Perhaps there is somewhere we can go to talk and learn more of your history?” He really hoped the Ecati had someplace with comfortable seating, because Jensen had a feeling his recent bout of empathic overload wouldn’t be his last.

~~~

As they continued meeting with the Ecati over the next few days, Jensen was reminded of all the ways he and Misha were different from _normal_ humans and how their own perceptions could be so deceiving.

The first night of the talks, after they retired to their cabin on Foalar’s shuttle, Jensen found himself lost in the memories he didn’t want to acknowledge.

_“I can’t believe it, I’m okay,” he had said after waking. He could even wiggle his toes!_

_“Jensen, we need to talk,” Katie—Dr. Cassidy—had approached his bed and sat down on the edge, her eyes guilty._

_“What? I’m fine, Jensen’s fine, Misha’s fine. Earth is saved.”_

_She shook her head._

_“What, we didn’t save Earth?”_

_“No, we did,” Katie reassured, “But the rest, Misha lost a lung. He’s got a Fropali respiratory implant now, and they had to replace more bone with Phvanzi synthetics. Jared’s in a similar boat. He lost his spleen and a kidney, and it’s looking like ORDA isn’t going to clear him for field duty anytime soon. And you—Jensen I’m so sorry.”_

_“For what?”_

The oppressive heat wafting into the open shuttle brought Jensen back to the here and now. Sweat was building up under his undershirt, trapped and amplified by the added weight and bulk of his protective vest, BDU top, and tac vest sending rivulets of salty, sticky, damp rolling down his skin. He could feel it, even where he could no longer really feel anything. The contours and contrast of the places he had normal sensation from the places he could feel nothing and the places that were stuck in between—pressure in some places, vibration in others, and here and there, temperature without anything else. He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it, and yet... 

It was what it was. His nerves were scrambled, deadened, disconnected, and then _partially_ restored through the mysteries of Marker physiology. They weren’t really mysteries anymore. Katie had figured out the basic _how_. When the Licinian plasma rifle had damaged Jensen’s spinal cord, burning skin and superficial nerves, crushing nerve roots with its shockwave, and causing even more damage thanks to Jensen’s allergy to posiphase, a chemical byproduct of the blast, Jensen’s body had compensated. His body had instinctively adapted one of the neurotransmitters common in all Markers normally responsible for enabling telepathy among Markers to transmit nerve impulses _across_ the physical gaps in his nervous system. It wasn’t perfect, far from it. The telepathic connection between his brain and nerves handled motor impulses better than sensation, which was part of the reason for the unpleasant mishmash of sensory input down Jensen’s back and across most of his torso. Telepathy also couldn’t do anything to replace the nerves that had been burned, melted, or destroyed through allergic reaction.

Like it or not, he now had large swaths of skin where he couldn’t feel clearly enough to know if he was bruised, cut, shot, stabbed or burned. And so, he now wore a thin, molded, close-fitting Kevlar vest under his clothes. He hated it, hated _needing_ it. The vest was a constant reminder of everything different about him. Without it, he could ignore the maze of sensation on his skin, he could pretend the way his legs felt and moved was the same as it had always been. Without it, there was no tangible proof he wasn’t human, or at least not an ordinary human. He could—for lack of a better description—turn off his telepathic communication and put down his WMD. If he was on a truly human-compatible planet, there was nothing to show his body was adapted for conditions and environments far outside Earth norm. It was like his induction into ORDA had never happened. Now he was faced with a constant, undeniable confirmation that he wasn’t the person he’d grown up believing himself to be. 

“Hey, you okay?” Misha asked, suddenly physically and mentally by Jensen’s side. His presence was a soothing glow, familiar and welcoming, a balm against the overbearing atmosphere of the planet outside.

Jensen leaned back into Misha’s outstretched arms as he pushed back gently with his mind, centering himself in the familiar embrace. “Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “Just... warm.” He waved his hand wishing he could shake off the sticky feeling of the sweat coating his body. “If we’re going to be spending all our time in roasting deserts and humid tropical paradises, I’m going to have to figure out something other than Kevlar to use for protection because this is just ridiculous.”

Misha brought his arms around Jensen, one hand pressing gently against his waist, while the other cradled his chest. He squeezed Jensen tight and rested his chin affectionately on Jensen’s left shoulder. “You know, we could always ask Foalar if the Fropali know of any materials that might help, or maybe someone we could contact who might have some ideas...” 

“I think Foalar’s got bigger problems to worry about,” Jensen said dismissively, forcing levity into his voice.

“I think she’d disagree with you on that,” Misha countered, his voice soft and affectionately teasing. “I mean you are important to this mission and the future peacemaking of this galaxy and all.”

Jensen shrugged. He was no one special, and using some alien material to protect himself would just be another reminder he didn’t need. He didn’t really want to shove Misha away, but being this close it was difficult, so difficult to—

“Jen, I know what’s really bothering you—I mean, other than the temperature, which let’s face it is just unpleasant, even for people like us,” Misha whispered in his ear. “Does it bother you that _I_ have alien tech inside me, keeping me alive? Do you think I’m unworthy?”

“I’m not—I don’t—” Jensen flushed at his insensitivity. But he just didn’t think about it. Years ago, following a series of battle wounds, half of Misha’s ribcage had been replaced with an alien-manufactured biocompatible metal alloy. 

_Don’t hide from me_ , Misha pleaded in his mind. _Everything you feel, I feel it too. And I know you want to protect me, but I’m a survivor too, and I’m a Marker just like you, and we’re in this together. I can’t be there for you if you hide from me._ He held Jensen tighter, not constricting or painful, but enveloping, loving. Misha rested his cheek against Jensen’s neck and spoke aloud. “It goes both ways.”

The words and concern broke through the shell Jensen had been building around himself, and he deflated with a long sigh. “I just fucking hate it.”

“I know, babe, believe me I know, but it sure beats the alternative.”

“Which alternative?” Jensen asked, quizzically.

“Pick one.”

There were so _many_. Without the vest, without being a Marker, Jensen’s prospects weren’t exactly awesome. He could adapt to using a wheelchair or crutches, sure. That would mean a lot of changes and a lot of psychological baggage to process, but he could cope, eventually thrive. But facing debilitating neuropathic pain, getting injured on a daily basis and not knowing it, or just outright being dead? Hell yeah, Jensen preferred this option to the alternatives. It didn’t mean he was _happy_ in an absolute sense, and he had no clue when he might get around to truly coming to terms with his new life.

“We’ll get there,” Misha murmured in response to Jensen’s unspoken musings. “Just don’t think you have to figure it out all at once.” Misha kissed him again and straightened up.

  


_Chapter 2_

The talks continued for three days, interrupted when Misha received a communique from ORDA Central Command.

“We’re being recalled for a debriefing on new policy changes,” Misha read to Jensen over breakfast.

“Oh yeah? Where’re they sending us? Earth? M’Nell?” He hoped it was M’Nell, the site of one of ORDA’s major offworld bases. Home to the Phvanzi, it was a beautiful world with wide open spaces and breathtaking architecture. It was also home to ORDA’s premiere rehab hospital, where Jared had been recuperating when Jensen had last seen him. 

“Miradoma,” Misha answered.

“The retirement world?” Jensen asked, perplexed.

“There’s a big ORDA bases there. Administration, intelligence, that kind of thing. It’s a gorgeous world. Some people like it more than M’Nell,” Misha added.

“Then why are you in such a pissy mood?”

Misha sighed, passing his tablet to Jensen. “Take a look at the last line.”

Jensen read. Then read again. “We can’t open a wormhole there? We have to take a shuttle? What the hell? That’s two sectors away. It will take days off Foalar’s schedule, and we could be there in an instant!” His fingers closed reflexively over the wormhole making device—or WMD for short—attached to his belt. Finding the WMD had been what brought Jensen to ORDA’s attention. Now it was a part of him. His was one of the original Licinian WMDs that their genetic engineers had left on Earth for them to find and eventually learn to venture out into space.

“I’ve got no clue, but I’m not about to get into a fight with ORDA central command over this,” Misha admitted.

So as soon as Foalar conclude the talks, they packed up the shuttle and headed to Miradoma with Jensen feeling decidedly unsettled.

~~~

Jensen didn’t feel any better once they arrived. True, the main city that housed the ORDA base was majestic with lots of tall glass spires, but the sense of fear and foreboding was so pervasive it was making Jensen sick. There was a far higher concentration of Markers on Miradoma than on an ordinary ORDA base on Earth, and each and every one of them was projecting their emotions, creating a kind of telepathic fog that hung over the base.

It didn’t take Jensen very long to find out _why_ everyone was miserable. As soon as he and Misha had settled in their temporary quarters, Jared and his wife Genevieve stopped by.

“Why aren’t you on M’Nell, or Earth?” Jensen asked, happy to see his best friend, but surprised to find him so far from the hospital where he’d been receiving therapy.

“They wanted to free up more beds on M’Nell for their _human_ patients,” Genevieve spat.

“Gen,” Jared soothed. “It’s not like that. They just thought I could recover more comfortably here than on M’Nell or Earth.”

But Jensen could feel what Jared wasn’t saying. Genevieve, who was human and new to the realities of ORDA, having only learned of the organization after Jared was wounded, had the right idea.

“Everything’s changed,” Genevieve said. “They don’t treat Markers well anymore. They don’t act like Jared’s a hero. It’s all humans first and Earth for humans and hostility towards Markers for having a ‘genetic monopoly’ on wormhole manipulation. They’re talking about _curing_ you. People are saying the Licinians attacked because Markers were there stealing their technology. They say you’re not natural, you’re contaminated and we humans can’t _trust_ you as long as you’re tainted with Licinian genetics.”

“What?” Misha asked flabbergasted.

But he and Jensen would have to wait to hear anything else Jared or Genevieve might have shared. At that moment he and Misha were summoned to a meeting with a mid-level ORDA bureaucrat, and Jensen’s day went downhill from there.

The bureaucrat, a human woman in her mid-thirties, was accompanied by a psychologist who informed them she was there to conduct a “routine psychological evaluation” after their “prolonged contact” with alien species.

Jensen and Misha shared a shocked glance. Contact with Aliens was in their primary job description. It had never warranted a psychological evaluation before. 

It soon became apparent the psychologist had an ulterior motive, to see how Jensen and Misha reacted to the new regulations that had been implemented during their absence. 

Wormholes were now strictly regulated and tracked. Unauthorized operation of a wormhole would have them facing disciplinary action and having their WMDs removed. ORDA was implementing a “step up, step back” policy that in this case meant Markers were supposed to “step back,” because they’d been monopolizing all the responsibilities.

Jensen couldn’t fault ORDA on that point. For a long time ORDA had prioritized Markers above humans, sometimes with lethal results. The policy had made Jensen—and everyone else he knew—sick and ridiculously uncomfortable. He had hoped ORDA might implement policies to achieve equality and parity, but this—this was just flipping the discrimination and hatred on its head.

As the session went on, Jensen found it harder and harder to block out the fear bleeding off those around him. Eventually it was too much.

“Excuse me,” he said, standing abruptly, “but I have to go.”

~~~

“Fuck,” Jensen screamed, storming away from the sprawling sea-green glass building and everything it symbolized. “Fuuuuck!” He started running, overwhelmed by the flood of emotions and knowledge he’d absorbed.

Everything was wrong. He could figure it out if he tried, but he really didn’t want to put too fine a point on it. Jensen wasn’t one to hide from the truth. He didn’t prize ignorance, and he knew in the long run, he was always better off knowing what was coming, even if it was knowing he—and everyone he loved—were doomed, condemned to die. But the disillusionment and desperation he’d felt coming from Katie and Jared and Major Harris and the hundred or so other Markers in the reception center had sent him tumbling to the edge. Their emotions had been so intense he hadn’t been able to block them out, mind after mind clutching and scrabbling in death spirals of panic all of them trying to suppress, ignore, disbelieve, but failing miserably. Worse than that was the distrust, rolling underneath and sliding across the top, it was the same emotion Jensen had picked up from the Ecati, only clear, free of the alien distortion his pheromones couldn’t quite translate, and the raw edge of agony and hopelessness cut him to the bone. He needed to escape.

And so Jensen let his feet carry him over the straw-yellow grass and ochre cut-stone walkways. He ran and ran until the blur of glass administrative and office buildings gave way to squat, colorful domed houses, most of them one-story tall, with the occasional hill-shaped two or three story homes popping up with just enough frequency to break the monotony. The grass gave way to banks of blue flowers and solitary trees— _paridisa_ —he thought they were called, with straight red-brown trunks reminiscent of majestic redwoods, only gracing a deciduous tree with broad leaves and a gentle spread of branches at the top, about the height of a magnolia, each trunk less than a foot in diameter. They signaled the approach of the ocean, but Jensen found himself still running flat out, unable to stop. His steps didn’t slow even as the walkways began to slope downhill and the signs printed in a dozen languages cautioned the water’s approach.

Part of him wanted to run into the sea and never stop, just keep pounding forward until the salt weighed him down and the waves swallowed him whole. The oceans on Miradoma were rumored to be blissfully soothing, filled with natural salts and minerals that reduced inflammation and softened the skin. There were geothermal vents all along this side of the main continent too, releasing a constant stream of balmy warmth and giving life to all sorts of warm water corals, sulfur-loving algae, and adaptive fish. Jensen could just run and run and lose himself, leave this war-torn, hate-filled, hell-bent universe behind.

_Only you wouldn’t sink, genius. Water like that is buoyant. You’d just float and get wet._

Grass and trees gave way to black sand, obsidian pulverized and worn smooth by the pounding waves. He put on a burst of speed, sliding and faltering as his body struggled to compensate on the loose, uneven sand. He thought about throwing himself in anyway, but before he’s made up his mind, he found himself stuttering to a stop at the water’s edge, one toe dipping into the gently lapping waves to steady himself and keep him from tumbling in headfirst.

The anger and fear that was burning through him translated into the searing sensation of oxygen starved lungs and the frantic pounding of his heart rhythmically throwing itself against his ribs. Hands on his knees, body trembling, he stood there, staring at his reflection, and wondering how life and victory and success and healing had collapsed and crumbled so efficiently. Just this morning he had been optimistic. A little rattled by their latest mission, but elated to be seeing Jared and so many other friends after six months of tireless work; excited to finally see the almost mythical planet ORDA operatives sought out as a reward for a lifetime of good service. Earth away from Earth. And now...

Now his hopes and dreams were smoking ruins, and the Ecati’s cautionary warnings were the most positive thoughts on his mind.

“Jensen—”

It was just the wind, a trick of his hearing.

“Jensen!” His name again. Louder and clearer, not lost to the wind.

The familiar press of Misha’s mind, concerned (for Jensen) and pissed off (at everything else) followed on its heels.

“Damnit, Jensen. Do you have to be so damn melodramatic?” Misha bitched halfheartedly as he jogged up to Jensen, carefully managing to avoid slipping and falling on his face.

“As I recall you strongly disapproved of drinking and smoking,” he shrugged, fixing his eyes on the horizon and watching the sunlight in the violet-tinged sky play off the sparkle of the green waves below. The water was so clear, the light picked up the hues of the obsidian and amphibole underneath and cast the sea in a swirl of amethyst and emerald. “Running’s healthy.”

“Hah!” Misha scoffed. “Is that what you’re calling it?”

Eyebrow raised, Jensen straightened and turned his head to look at Misha. “What else would I call it?” he asked, deadpan.

Misha wiped his sweat-sopped, too-long hair out of his eyes. “A suicidal sprint? A homicidal rampage?” He bent forward, resting elbows to knees as his chest heaved. “Jesus. You do realize everyone in that building _felt_ you, right?”

Jensen blanched. Actually he’d been so busy being overwhelmed by everyone else, he hadn’t given it much thought.

“Yeah, you were projecting all over the place. Not exactly confidence inspiring, especially how you ran out on a debriefing.”

“It was over,” Jensen pointed out with a shrug.

“Yeah, but the psych officer there was evaluating us.”

“And what? I came off as nine kinds of crazy because I lit out of that place before I collapsed under the sheer mental weight of a few thousand people consumed by fear, dreading every moment because they’ve seen the writing on the wall and know it’s only a matter of time before the universe gets yanked out from under them?” The words came out bitter and clipped. He was almost spitting at the end, unable to suppress a shudder as he recalled the sensation again. Fuck it. He couldn’t have stayed another moment if he’d tried.

Misha cast him a sideways glance. “She was _human _, Jensen,” he said between pants.__

Which, fuck! “So, what she just thinks I’m unstable because she doesn’t know what I was responding to?” And that would suck. He’d probably be recalled to base, put under watch and extensive evaluation. His stomach flip-flopped. They’d probably take his WMD away until he could be trusted again... which could be indefinitely, especially with all the new regulations and policies in place. Or worse... “Or crap, I just gave them a read on the emotional state of every Marker in that building.”

“Well, maybe,” Misha said, “but that would require them to know we’re telepathic.”

“And I just exhibited unexplained behavior, which means they’ve got all the more reason to suspect the truth.”

Misha looked at him for a moment, his forehead creased in concentration, before he straightened up and crossed the meter or so between them and wrapped Jensen up in his arms. “They still don’t know,” he reassured. 

“How do you know that?” Jensen asked, doubtful.

Chuckling into Jensen’s hair, Misha stretched against him. “Because I covered for you. Said you had a strict physical therapy and activity schedule to keep if you wanted to say in peak mission fitness, and if you had to leave then if you wanted to get your session in before our next commitment.”

The light caught in Misha’s hair, making it glisten. 

“They could still—”

“But they don’t. I, uh, checked her notes during the meeting.” Misha blushed.

Dumbfounded, Jensen stepped back, slack jawed and staring a Misha in disbelief. “Are you— You hacked her tablet?”

“Actually I hacked the not so secure network and intercepted the data packets as they transmitted to the local servers. She was perplexed. Didn’t know why you were so edgy, since ‘everyone else on base is so receptive to the new protocols.’“ He shrugged. “She chalked it up to being out of contact with ORDA command while the new system was being rolled out, and accepted it as anecdotal evidence confirming their decision to implement the new mission directives and hierarchical schema on an incremental basis, a policy she supported by the way, so you made her feel very vindicated,” Misha added with a grim smile.

“I take it you didn’t break it to her that she’s a shit scientist and her methodology—if you can call it that—is rife with confirmation bias and wholly lacking in objectivity?”

Misha’s chuckle turned into a whole-hearted guffaw. “Oh Jensen, why did you ever leave science academia?”

“Cause most lawyers suck at science and the consequences are staggering, so I thought I’d put my knowledge to work there, where I could help,” he murmured. After another moment spent watching the light play in Misha’s hair, Jensen leaned in for a kiss. “I still can’t believe you took that sort of risk, hacking right under their noses.”

Caressing Jensen’s cheek, Misha answered. “Aw that?” He shrugged, “Nothing new. We’ve all been doing that kind of shit for years. All the factions and competition and shifting loyalties... ORDA’s never been a particularly trusting organization.” The fingers of his right hand played soothingly on Jensen’s back, brushing against the edges of Jensen’s vest, providing reassuring pressure in all the places Jensen could feel and reassurance through trust where he couldn’t.

Resting his head against Misha’s shoulder, Jensen sighed. “You know? The more I learn about ORDA in the good old days, the more it makes me think of the Goa’uld System Lords. A bunch of paranoid, power-hungry sociopaths and their slaves and brainwashed, dependent servants making nice for the outside world while engaged in a constant back-stabbing battle for territory.”

“I think you’re forgetting the megalomaniacal part.”

“Nah, that goes without saying,” Jensen murmured, capturing Misha’s mouth in another kiss. As the kiss deepened, something Misha said pinged his awareness, making him curious. He didn’t voice his question, just pondered it, and it rolled around in his mind as he slipped deeper and deeper into Misha, wrapping himself in love and support and contentment.

After minutes had passed, Misha pulled back grinning and kissed the tip of Jensen’s nose. You know, you could just _ask_.”

_More fun this way,_ Jensen teased mentally.

“Well, when you put it that way—” Misha’s lips tasted like sunshine and mint as they kissed this time. “Anthony Mason, one of the inventors of the original Earth-made WMDs has invited us to his home.”

That was certainly not what Jensen expected. Suddenly intrigued, he asked, “Weren’t the Gen1 WMDs developed during World War II?”

“Yup.”

“And one of the designers is still around?” Jensen asked, his voice rising in surprise.

“Well Dr. Mason was a pretty young guy then. He’s in his mid-nineties now, but he’s quite spry and quite a character from what I understand. We’re... Markers have a pretty long lifespan if we can avoid dying in battle or succumbing to our allergies.” Misha smiled, “Dr. Mason is asking for us personally, and he’s really picky about who he sees, so it’s a great honor.”

It took a moment for Jensen to unpack the information and implications in Misha’s statement, and when he did, he knew without a doubt he wanted to meet Dr. Mason right away. “Can—can we go now?”

“Sure,” Misha shrugged and turned, taking Jensen with him. “Dr. Mason’s house is about two klicks that way,” he pointed east, just inland from the shoreline.

“Have you been there before?” Jensen asked, curious.

Misha grinned. “I wasn’t exaggerating when I said he was picky about visitors. I’ve never had clearance to know his address before.”

“But you do now?” 

“Gen. Farris sent it to me when ORDA Central Command forwarded his invitation.” His face contorted into an unreadable expression. “Not that she needed to. Dr. Mason hacked my account and sent an invitation directly to my tablet about two minutes after that.” He reached into his backpack and produced a tablet. “Yours too.”

Jensen took the tablet when Misha offered it to him. Sure enough, there was the message. Blushing with embarrassment, Jensen looked up at Misha. “I didn’t realize I left this—” No, he’d just bolted and left everything behind. Hell, he hadn’t even noticed Misha’s backpack until just now. A hot rush of guilt washed over him. That was an awfully long way to run with a pack, even if it was only a half-empty field pack. “Shit, I’m sorry,” Jensen said, slipping the pad into one of the cargo pockets of his BDUs.

“Don’t. I get it. Harris and I could feel it too. Only we weren’t getting the full brunt of it like you were, because we weren’t doing mental acrobatics to get through a debrief without giving anything away. “Harris took your pack back to our quarters.”

That was a relief. Jensen ran one hand through his hair, tugging in frustration, the tiny frissons of pain cutting through the cacophony in his mind and leaving clarity in his wake. “How far’d I run, anyway?” He knew it had been a considerable distance, but he’d been so absorbed he had no sense of scale.

“Oh, just shy of 20 klicks,” Misha answered casually.

Jensen turned to him wide-eyed, but he could tell through the bond Misha was serious.

“And you ran the whole way?” He glanced at the WMD strapped to Misha’s belt.

“Well yeah, I didn’t know where you were going, and I could tell how withdrawn you were. Opening an intraplanetary wasn’t exactly practical with the new regulations, and if I’d found you that way, I probably just would have scared the crap out of you. You needed the run, and it sure didn’t hurt me.” He shrugged again, “Besides, intraplanetaries are still a new enough discovery they kinda freak some people out, and I don’t want to get in the habit of just _apparating_ everywhere.”

“Apparating? Seriously?” Jensen leveled a scowl at him.

The shoulder bump that followed was purely playful. “What would you prefer? _Bamfing_? Nightcralwer’s teleportation was short-distance and line of sight, so that analogy isn’t even accurate. Besides, Bamfing? Sounds ridiculous.”

It was Jensen’s turn to laugh, the dark cloud that had hung over him since they arrived on Miradoma lifted. “Huh, that’s funny, seeing as you’re quite the BAMF, I’d think the term would appeal to you.”

Misha glared back. For a moment he did nothing, until finally a smile broke over his face.

The slap to the back of Jensen’s head was unexpected. “Ow,” he complained, rubbing the sore spot.

“You are impossible,” Misha managed between chuckles. “Come on.” He draped his right arm over Jensen’s shoulders and pulled him close. “Just be glad you ran this way. If you’d gone in the opposite direction, we’d have one hell of a long walk in front of us,” he teased playfully.

_Chapter 3_  


Jensen wasn’t sure what to expect from Tony Mason. He was some sort of a celebrity here, royalty, if ORDA had such a thing. And a bit of an eccentric. Jensen got the sense Tony lived way out here, away from the base and the city, as much to keep him out of ORDA’s hair—out of sight, out of mind—as to suit his personal desires. His home, for all its modesty, had the air of a gated estate, yet Jensen had never heard of Tony until recently. A brilliant scientist who had apparently revolutionized wormhole travel and ORDA’s Earth-based technologies, and he was unheard of on Earth.

What he found definitely wasn’t within the realm of what he might have imagined. 

The entrance sprang out of nowhere, two tiny guard booths buried among the tall dune grasses, the color so closely matched they couldn’t see it until they were almost on top of it. The guard in the closest booth sprang from a seemingly disinterested sprawl to attention in one fluid move. If Jensen had blinked, he would have missed it. The guard was wearing a uniform, but it wasn’t ORDA. Like the booth itself, the uniform seemed to blend into the surroundings. Upon second glance, Jensen wouldn’t have been surprised if the fabric had some kind of active camouflage. It was intriguing, and for the first time since they’d landed on Miradoma, curiosity and excitement overcame the gloom of dread and depression his mind had been marinating in. The guard was armed, but the weapon wasn’t one Jensen recognized. Curiosity piqued more closely, he peered at it more closely. He thought it might be an energy weapon with multiple settings, but he couldn’t be sure. 

The guard cleared his throat. “Excuse me?”

Jensen flushed with embarrassment and straightened up. He was suddenly very aware of just how disheveled he must look. Sweaty, dirty, unidentified, he wasn’t exactly the epitome of trustworthy. In fact if he’d showed up for official ORDA duty looking like this he’d get written up for sure. 

Before Jensen could make a bigger fool of himself, Misha pulled out his ID and flashed it at the guard. “Colonel Collins and Captain Ackles, here to see Dr. Mason. He’s expecting us.”

“Of course.” The guard’s demeanor chanced completely, and he broke into a smile. “Pleased to meet you, Colonel,” he inclined his head at Misha, “Captain,” he nodded at Jensen.

Jensen found himself responding inappropriately, his hand moving to salute and stopping awkwardly halfway there. The guard’s deference and uniform had Jensen responding as if he were a fellow soldier, only he apparently was not a part of ORDA 

Luckily, Misha responded with the usual grace under pressure Jensen had come to expect, smoothing over all the rough spots and taking everything in stride. “Likewise,” he returned the guard’s smile and nodded back.

“Dr. Mason is expecting you.” The guard motioned for them to enter. 

Misha nodded again and set off up the long arc of the driveway, beckoning Jensen to follow him. 

Jensen gave the guard a furtive nod, and followed Misha, his embarrassment giving way to curiosity.

The outside world seemed to disappear once they were a few meters up the drive, the tall dune grass flanking it and blocking the rest of the arc from sight. Though Jensen knew the driveway must emerge and rejoin the access road just a little further up the street where the second guard booth sat, he certainly couldn’t confirm that once inside. He couldn’t see their destination, let alone the other end of the driveway.

The dune and the path carved through it seemed to go on endlessly, the driveway climbing slightly as it curved across the face of the dune. When they had gone at least 25 meters without any sign of the house, Jensen was about to ask Misha how much further it was, when he looked up. “Oh.”

Misha met Jensen’s expression of wonderment with a delighted grin. “It’s impressive isn’t it?” He was almost bouncing in his boots.

Jensen followed Misha’s gaze back to the keypad for a door com that seemed to be suspended in midair. Taking a closer look, he realized he was staring at the gracefully sloping outline of a local-style dome house, built into the face of the dune. Only it was much larger than the other dome houses Jensen had seen, and it wasn’t covered in earth or tile or composite. I seemed to be coated with the same active camouflage that surrounded the guard booths. “Wow,” Jensen breathed. “Have you been here before?”

“No.” Misha answered hastily, Jensen could tell Misha didn’t want him to be jealous. “But I know guys who have. They described it, but...” He shook his head, disbelief rolling off him in waves. “The description didn’t do it justice.”

Jensen nodded in understanding, taking it all in. He couldn’t imagine how he would explain what he was seeing, or not seeing. 

Misha stepped up to the door and pressed his palm to the keypad. 

Once again, Jensen was surprised. Rather than an answer from within, after a few seconds, the door slid open, revealing a tall, balding, older man with dark skin and bright, knowing eyes. “Colonel,” he acknowledged Misha, “Jensen,” he smiled. I’m so glad you could come.” He clasped Misha’s outstretched hand in both of his and shook. 

“Dr. Mason, it’s our pleasure,” Misha answered.

“Please, call me Tony,” he replied. His face broke into a knowing grin that made his eyes dance and smile with delight.

Once again, Misha took the unexpected response in stride. Smiling i. return, he held out his hand, “Then I’m very pleased to meet you, Tony. I’m Misha, and this is Jensen.” He gestured to Jensen even as Tony was waving them both inside.

Jensen was a dozen steps inside the foyer, which was much cozier and more intimate than he was expecting given how big the house seemed on the outside, when his brain finally caught up with what he was seeing. Dr. Mason was supposed to be in his 90s. According to the brief synopsis Jensen had learned in training, Dr. Mason had been recruited into ORDA during World War II, when he was already a doctor. Yet the man Jensen was seeing couldn’t be a day over seventy if he was even that. Jensen would have guessed he was closer to his mid, maybe even early sixties. Tony moved like a younger man too. He didn’t seem as spry or agile as a teenager, certainly, but he moved around his home with grace and ease, ascending and descending stairs with nary a popping knee. 

And they were going up and down stairs. Tony had led them down a hallway that seemed to meander its way deeper into the house. The length of the passageway hinted at the building’s true size, but all Jensen got to see were a lot of closed doors, as the hallway bumped up and down. 

“Never you mind this ostentatious drivel,” Tony called over his shoulder. This is the public part of the house I use when ORDA insists on butting its way in. I wouldn’t dream of letting them into my home, just as I wouldn’t dream subjecting you to that dog and pony show... Ah, here we are. Just watch your step.” Tony’s hand slapped over a control pad and turned a corner, disappearing down a few steps. 

Misha and Jensen followed, and Jensen was suddenly grateful for the warning. There was something odd about the height of the steps that made it difficult for Jensen to keep his balance. 

Sensing his distress, Misha shot him a questioning look, and offered his arm in assistance.

Jensen shook his head, “I’m good,” he replied and gripped the railing to steady himself. Jensen also felt heavier by the time he’d stepped on the last stair, and he realized Tony must have a gravity generator in play. Rather than the slightly bouncier native gravity, they were now standing in Earth norm. For that matter, if not for the glimpse of green sky visible through the sweeping window that ran along the far wall, Jensen would have guessed they were somewhere on earth. 

Tony had led them into a room filled with overstuffed furniture—a couch, loveseat, and two armchairs surrounded a long, low coffee table. A piano sat in one corner, and a telescope was perched on a long credenza underneath the window. They were higher up than Jensen had thought, and he realized they must be nestled in the far side of the dune, looking out through a path of cleared grass. There were mahogany book cases, dotted with knick-knacks, and photos filling frames around the room, sitting on end tables, and running around the mantle that overlooked the fireplace. 

“Sit, please,” Tony offered. “I was afraid that gravity generator would unsettle your balance, Jensen.”

Pulled from his perusal of the room, Jensen turned back to face Tony. How did he know? Jensen opened his mouth to ask, but what came out was, “Your guards aren’t ORDA?” It wasn’t really a question.

Tony smiled again, a huge grin that seemed to spread out from his face and extend through every inch of his body. “My guards aren’t ORDA. Of course that makes ORDA most displeased. At least four times a year I get some General or Colonel in here blathering on about how I need their protection for my own safety. As if I don’t know what’s best for my own life, as if they could actually protect me. From what? When the only thing most of us need protection from is _them_.” He waved his hand again, “You can sit.”

Jensen and Misha took seats side-by-side, while Tony sat in the arm chair nearest the door. 

“But how—” Jensen started and then broke off, realizing how presumptuous he sounded, making demands when he was a guest in Tony’s home. Still curiosity won out. “Where did you find people who aren’t ORDA?”

“This world isn’t just a base or a pit stop or a prison. It’s not just a place ORDA sends people who have outlived their usefulness or have earned the right to a reprieve. There are families here, society, culture. Miradoma is her own world, and we’ve been coming to it, building it, for over 120 years. Somewhere along the way, some folks got wise, realized ORDA’s usual strong arm tactics don’t work so well here. There’s no fear of exposing ourselves to the outside world, there’s no risk of people learning about alien worlds, there isn’t even a shortage of people like us,” Tony added meaningfully.

“You mean Markers?” Jensen asked. 

“If you want to use their word for us, yes. We outnumber humans here four to one. Service is voluntary. People are born here, some come here as children, and they don’t always join up when they grow up. Some of those people become my guards.”

“Their weapons, you designed them,” Jensen realized.

“I did,” Tony agreed, “and try as they might, ORDA isn’t getting their grubby hands on them.” His expression changed to one of knowing serenity. Placing his hands in his lap, fingers steepled together, he said, “And now I am sitting with the one who figured it out. Who unlocked the key we’ve sought for years. And you did it all under ORDA’s noses.”

“Excuse me?” Jensen asked, looking to Misha for guidance 

“Juliette and I always knew there was more to the natural symbs than that, but we could never quite unlock it, and try as I might I could never get intraplanetary wormholes to open on demand. I managed them a half-dozen times, purely by accident. Julie said it was fear... But I am getting ahead of myself. You have questions.” He was staring at Jensen as he finished.

“I’m sorry; you said ‘syms’?” Jensen asked, cocking his head as if the new perspective would help him understand better.

“Symbs,” Tony repeated emphasizing the “b.” That was our pet name for the Wormhole Making Devices. Short for symbiotes. We always thought that was a much more accurate description of them than WMD,” Tony chuckled. 

“Wouldn’t that imply they’re alive?” Jensen asked.

Tony just stared back at him serenely, “After everything you’ve seen in this universe, what makes you think they’re not alive?”

“I—I don’t know,” Jensen admitted, floundering.

It was Misha who picked up the conversation, recalling the narrative thread. “So, you were aware interplanetary wormholes were possible but you didn’t report it to command?” 

Jensen shot Misha a nervous glance. He couldn’t get a read on Misha’s mood. His mind was guarded, cloaked in shadows. Jensen hoped this was curiosity on Misha’s part and not a sign of superior officer mode. It would be embarrassing and rude to turn Tony in for not reporting something he discovered decades ago.

“Don’t worry, Jensen, he’s not threatening me,” Tony responded. 

Again Jensen wondered if Tony was reading his mind. 

“At first we were a bit naïve,” Tony began, “and a little overconfident. Juliette and I thought we had it all figured out. We’d built a symb that worked, and ORDA was pleased. For the first time, we weren’t limited by how many symbs we could find. It was revolutionary... And then...” His expression darkened. 

Jensen felt a wave of guilt and regret wash over him.

“When those people died, I was almost inconsolable, and Juliette was so angry. That could have been her. And the Generals were just pleased it wasn’t someone more _valuable_.” Tony shook his head in disgust.

Jensen remembered his own shock and horrors at learning the early Earth-made WMDs had originally been built without a failsafe, and were able to connect to uninhabitable planets, moons, and asteroids. The ordinary humans that stepped through them had gone through into inhospitable nothingness only to be trapped there forever when Markers’ genetic failsafes kicked in, preventing them from even attempting rescue. It had seemed harsh and cruel and unthinkable, and Jensen had been so angry that ORDA had let it happen. Part of him remained convinced that if only they’d tried harder, they could have found a way—if it had been Markers stranded, they wouldn’t have been left to die, or at least ORDA would have found a way to bring their bodies home. 

“Oh, I know,” Tony murmured in understanding, he slid to the edge of his seat. He leaned forward, the intensity of his stare transfixing them in their seats. “Everything you’re feeling, we felt it too. We were so guilty. We thought we were so powerful, and we’d been fools. Kids playing god. So we wanted to be sure when we fixed the problem... and that was when we started realizing there was so much more to the symbs than simple interplanetary wormholes.”

The silence that followed stretched on, filling with all the questions and everything that remained unsaid.

“Do you mean...” Jensen began finally, but a chime sounded. 

Misha and Jensen both startled, jumping.in their seats. They exchanged a look then cast a weary glance at the door. Was ORDA here? Were they listening? It was a stupid question. They were always listening, and here Jensen was babbling away, saying things he didn’t want them to hear—

But Tony didn’t seem startled at all. He smiled and got up as if he was expecting it. 

Jensen and Misha tracked Tony’s progress across the room. He met someone at the door, where the gravity generator had kicked in, and Jensen saw it was a person in a uniform, the same uniform the guards had worn. Only this person was holding a tray laid out for a tea service for three. Tony thanked the person with the tray and returned to his seat, setting the tray down on the low coffee table between them.

Jensen looked at Misha, then they both looked at the tea, then Tony, then back at each other. Was it poison? A peace offering? A threat? ORDA’s secretive ways, competitive factions, and coercive methods engendered healthy paranoia and an overabundance of caution at the best of times. But now? With all the restrictions on wormhole travel and the ominous debrief they’d just had, Jensen was half convinced Tony’s invitation was a trap, a trick to get them to spill the secrets they’d been keeping, lose the little bit of leverage and control they had. And the Tea was the embodiment of all those fears. Every possibility.

“Sometimes tea is just tea.” Tony murmured. 

Jensen and Misha turned back to him as one, as if drawn by magnets.

“You have questions. So many questions, and you will have answers. I promise you,” Tony’s voice was solemn, even as he poured himself a cup of tea, black, and savored a sip. Resting the saucer on his knee, he said “I really did invite you here because I was impressed with your discovery,” he said to Jensen. “I wanted to meet the person who unlocked how wormholes really work.” He smiled, and began pouring the tea into the two other cups. “Impressive.” He held out the cups, waiting for Jensen and Misha to each take one. “Of course, I did have another motive for bringing you both here, and we’ll get to that. But first, I need to tell you a story.”

Jensen took a hesitant sip of the tea and waited.

When Misha followed suit, Tony sat back with a pleased smile on his face. “I was born in 1920, in Connecticut, to a family that had recently migrated from New Orleans. In some ways, it was a land of opportunity, but it was still the 1920s and it was still the United States, and opportunity didn’t mean equal or fair ...”

The emotion Tony projected as he spoke was almost palpable.

“I was a smart boy, precocious and endlessly curious. Those qualities opened some doors for me that would have remained steadfastly closed otherwise. My teachers realized I was, gifted, especially when it came to math and science, so I found myself at university on a scholarship at the age of 16. And for a while, I was almost just an ordinary, brilliant physics student. By the time I was 22, I had successfully defended my Ph.D. But by then it was 1942. Europe and Asia were embroiled in war and the United States had been dragged in to the bloody mess. And that was a vortex I couldn’t escape. Like everyone else, I wound up serving, but unlike everyone else, my physics education made me a target for the weapons designers. I was fast tracked and pushed and prodded with people reminding me of the exceptions they were making. And for about a year, it was good.”

“What happened?” Misha asked when Tony’s silence began to linger.

“Life happened,” he said with a melancholy smile. “You see, I still had to go through combat training like everyone else. My superiors discovered I was an exceptionally good shot and put me through even more specialized training. The next thing I knew I was parachuting behind enemy lines putting my weapon plans into action. On my fifth mission, there was a storm... It was winter, and the weather was brutal. People were freezing to death, starving left and right. I was caught in a storm. An impossible storm. The snow drifts were five meters high, the temperature dropped to 40 below, and the wind gusts kept toppling me over.” A distant look swept over his face as if he was seeing the past played out in front of him. “The wind was what blew me off course... I wound up 100 miles north of where I was supposed to be, and I survived, alone, with just my coat, boots, and the pack on my back, and they knew.”

“ORDA found you.” Misha’s voice was pained, and Jensen knew he was reliving his own experience. Misha had learned he was a Marker, when he was injured and alone. He’d had his future stolen out of his hands with no one to turn to.

“ORDA _claimed_ me and my life changed forever. It was the best and worst thing to ever happen to me... Sometimes I wonder... But then I think back on everything I’ve done, and I wouldn’t have lived my life any differently. You see, that was how I met Juliette.” Tony cocked his head at one of the many framed photos placed around the room.

A young woman smiled back at them. She had dark hair, pale skin, and luminous brown eyes that seemed to dance and tease anyone who looked at them. 

“Your wife,” Jensen murmured in understanding, a rush of warmth toward Misha flooding through him.

“Yes,” Tony confirmed.

And then, like a switch had suddenly been flipped, Jensen could see the events of Tony’s life playing out before his eyes. Juliette was a doctor. She’d been fighting in the French resistance when she wound up treating an injured ORDA operative. True to form, ORDA had swept in and taken over her life. Even in the midst of war, they’d had the power and wherewithal to conscript her to the cause. Defending Earth, keeping the warring alliances from dragging alien enemies and allies into the fray... and they never let you go, once you knew. So Juliette knew and she was theirs to do with as they pleased. She was human, and back then, that was so much worse. To ORDA you were dispensable. Another mouth to feed, another security threat.

But then Tony had met her and she’d met him, and the entire universe changed. They were so alike and yet so different. Juliette, the French woman who’d seen her country fall and had fought back, who had more freedom and respect now as a woman in ORDA than ever before, who was valued for her kind, knowledge, ingenuity, and experience, who was seen as a person for the first time, only she could never leave... And Tony, who was finally in a place where no one even noticed the color of his skin, where he was ordinary and extraordinary at the same time, where no one felt it unfortunate that his intelligence and curiosity came in a Tony-shaped package, only to have all that wonder come with a privilege and presumed superiority he never wanted—he was on the flipside now and he didn’t like it one bit. But together they were more than the sum of their parts. Juliette’s knowledge of medicine and genetics coupled with Tony’s understanding of physics and mathematics to give ORDA the key to begin to unlock the secrets of the Markers, WMDs, and nanolumes. Throw in the knowledge gained from Earth’s allies and other extraterrestrial sources, and ORDA began to change. They went from being scavengers to being able to mass produce. The ability to put a WMD in the hands of ever Marker made them stronger, more flexible, better able to explore. ORDA stepped up recruiting and Earth began to come out of her shell.

For Juliette and Tony it had been an adventure and a mostly wonderful life. Together they had kept ORDA honest, ensured that both humans and Markers got rights and respect, and opened doors for millions on Earth. They’d fallen in love, traveled to new worlds, and found the most fruitful and complete partnership either could have imagined. They’d grown old together, Juliette and Tony, and ORDA had let them go. They’d retired to Miradoma like so many before them, and they had seen what the world was, what it could be.

“Juliette was happy here in a way she never was on Earth,” Tony was saying. “The people who come here to stay are mostly those who never quite saw eye-to-eye with ORDA’s methods or priorities. She kept on discovering, creating, right until she died.”

“I’m sorry that you lost her,” Jensen whispered. A teacup rattled dangerously loud. He looked down and realized his hands were trembling. The tea cup was clacking against its saucer, still perched precariously on Jensen’s knee. How had that—

Warm hands closed over Jensen’s steadying the cup and helping him to set it down on the coffee table. Misha slid across the couch and wrapped his arms around Jensen. Misha never did that while they were on duty. 

Jensen turned. Misha looked as shaken as Jensen felt. But why wasn’t he feeling Misha’s emotions? Only then did Jensen realize he’d closed himself down. Cautiously, he reached out and opened his connection and felt Misha’s sorrow wash over him... But there was so much more, an entire world, more than he’d ever...

“Juliette lived a long and happy life. She was older than me,” Tony smiled, his eyes a little damp, “and she was human. We both knew she couldn’t live forever, and really, who would want to?” Tony’s words resonated in the air, though his voice was very soft and quiet.

Jensen and Misha turned as one, arms still wrapped around each other. Tony seemed to glow, he looked so happy, yet so sad.

“She was 101 when she died five years ago, peacefully; surrounded by everyone she loved, knowing she’d led a good life. I just wish she could have met you two. The boys who finally unlocked the key “

“It was an accident,” Jensen replied sheepishly. 

“No,” Tony contradicted, his tone gentle, “it was your birthright, and it just might be the salvation of our people.” Tony’s eyes grew sadder. “I wish I could have brought your friend Katie here as well. She’s as much a part of this as you two are. If you’re going to figure out the rest of the puzzle, you’re going to need her.” He broke eye contact, staring at a point somewhere far over Jensen and Misha’s shoulders. “But it was enough trouble to get you here. ORDA’s simply too meddlesome to let me near her unseen and unheard.” His eyes snapped back to Jensen, giving an approving little nod. “You two were unbelievably brave. Even Juliette and I never dared. You defied them. ORDA likes to believe it is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-controlling—a god among its unwilling disciples. But you showed them there are gaps in their control. You very nearly gave the secret away, but not quite...”

“What secret?” Jensen whispered. 

“We don’t age like them—out here, with the medical advances, everyone lives longer, but we’ll live past 130, easily. There’s the speed, the endurance, the adaptability... On the surface, we’re identical, but look a little deeper and those who want to draw lines will find reason. But most people, the folks in command at ORDA, they just can’t wrap their minds around it. They know there’s something more, something they’re not seeing, but they’ve been so keen on ignoring all the ways we’re not like them, the full scope of what we can do, of who we are, that they cannot see. As long as they don’t understand, we have a real chance.”

“I still don’t understand,” Jensen whispered. Misha squeezed his hand.

“Yes you do, both of you know instinctively, it is one thing thy must not learn....” _They still don’t know we’re telepathic._

Only Tony hadn’t spoken the words aloud. 

“Everyone here knows,” Misha murmured, then shook himself. “The markers and their families, everyone who retires here, everyone born here. But not anyone still on active duty who’s from Earth. We’re the first ones you ever told.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes,” Tony confirmed with a nod. “You are the first for _many_ things. And I trust you both, and your dear Doctor Katie, to share what I tell you with those you trust. I know you will choose wisely, because you understand.”

“But why us, why now?” Jensen asked. 

“Because you already know, and if you allowed yourself, you could find all the answers on your own. You’re too polite for that, and I’m afraid we don’t have time.”

“Why not?” Misha and Jensen both asked. 

“Because the world as we know it, so to speak, is teetering on the brink. You’ve seen it happening already, the shape of things to come, all those restrictions, all those changes. They don’t want us out there.” Tony pointed up at space. “They’ve made their judgments and found us lacking. The fools. You know what I’ve learned in all my time out here?”

“What’s that?” Jensen asked, fumbling his teacup and saucer.

Tony gave him a wry sort of half-smile and turned his head to stare out the window where a decidedly alien airskate was gliding on wind currents and eddies against the backdrop of the brilliant green sky. “People from Earth put such a premium on humanity, but most of them wouldn’t have the first clue about supposed human decency. They wear their humanity like a shield and wield it as a sword. The ultimate double standard.” Tony’s head snapped back and his dark brown eyes seemed to see into Jensen’s soul. “I am human therefore I am untouchable, no matter how I act. But if you are not human, I can use that fact to strike you down, because no matter how you act, you will never be as worthy as me... You see the circularity of their logic? They completely forget there were reasons why humanity was prized and praised, and neglect to see they do not embody any of those reasons.”

The words hung in the air; neither Jensen nor Misha was sure how to respond.

“Come, come,” Tony said, rising. “Enough philosophizing. There are some things I have to show you.” Tony crossed to the far side of the room, where there was a small window set high in the wall. Through it they could see the slope of the hill, tall waving grass, and puffy white clouds dancing across the purple sky. But Tony was directing their attention to a locked cabinet just under the window to the left. He pulled an old-fashioned-looking key from his pocket and slipped it into the lock. “Appearances can be very deceiving,” he said, pulling the key from the lock. 

Taking a better look, Jensen could see the key actually had a few transmitters embedded in it.

“Biometric sensor in the key handle—checks for heart rate, common byproducts of fear and duress. The cabinet is actually a safe made of steel plates. Someone else tries to use the key,” he held it out for Jensen to take.

The moment Jensen’s fingers closed around it, he got a nasty shock. After a few seconds the key stopped shocking him, and he gladly released it. “Shit,” Jensen swore, shaking his fingers. His muscles in his arm continued to spasm from the shock.

“Make you think twice about stealing it or breaking in, wouldn’t it,” Tony teased. “Of course it’s not foolproof or theft proof, but then nothing is. Take a look.”

The door had swung open to reveal shelf after shelf of WMDs, weapons, and scanners, all bathed in a gentle blue light. Some of the devices, Jensen recognized, but others were completely new. Or new to him, because some of them appeared physically quite old 

“This is a First Generation or GenI WMD, or bad fake symb as I like to call it,” Tony explained picking up a large egg-shaped object with angular blinking lights peppering its surface. It was dark and inert on the shelf, but when Tony closed his hand around it, the object lit up, emitting an amber glow and a fain hum. Seeing Jensen and Misha’s shocked faces, Tony explained, “I keep it around as a reminder. We let ORDA pressure us into releasing this before it was ready.”

“It still works?” Misha asked, sounding scandalized. 

Jensen could feel Misha’s disapproval through the bond.

“Ah, don’t getting all high and mighty with me. I’m not about to go chucking humans through wormholes that lead into empty space or the hearts of stars. And before you start defending them, I happen to know ORDA has kept a stash of these, locked up, of course, but their locks are only as strong as the morals and resolve of the people holding the keys.” He leaned towards Jensen and whispered mock-conspiratorially in his ear, “Which is traditionally not very strong at all.” 

“I still don’t understand why you would—” Misha started.

“Knowledge is power,” Tony interrupted, his voice calm and clear and not the least bit upset by Misha’s outburst. “We can learn at least as much from our failures as our successes. Take one’s failures and one’s successes together, and sometimes one can really learn how the pieces fit together.” He held the GenI WMD up for Misha to touch. “This artifact contains some very important lessons I don’t ever want to forget. It illustrates assumptions we made, demonstrates subtle misunderstandings in our own biochemistry, and so much more. Every time I examine it, I learn something new. Do you know what I learned this time?”

“What?” Misha asked, his voice hoarse.

_You fear you are unworthy of your command, Misha,_ Tony spoke into both their minds. _You don’t think you should have the power of life and death over so many._

Misha’s hand shook where he touched the WMD. 

“And that is precisely why you are the right person for this job,” Tony finished out loud. He took the WMD away, and returned it to the shelf. “Now I trust you won’t tell the ORDA brass about the rest of this collection; the paper pushers get very upset when they hear I am inventing tools and weapons and not letting ORDA play with them.” So they continued, with Tony showing them various inventions, eventually moving out of the sitting room and into other rooms in the private part of the residence. Tony explained how the private portion of his estate was the original house he and Juliette had built when they both retired to Miradoma in their sixties. When ORDA started invading their privacy on a regular basis, Juliette had the idea of merging the small dome with a much larger dome partially covering it, yet the skin of the original residence remained intact. It was this skin that provided much of the security and privacy for the private regions of the home. It was laced with wires and jamming circuitry acting like a giant Faraday cage for eavesdropping technologies.

Jensen was impressed, not the least because the design concept reminded him of the Duomo in Florence, if the Duomo was a giant anti-spy trap. 

Tony was pleased with the comparison, and confided in Jensen he’d made a very similar analogy when Juliette proposed the design. 

Finally, Tony took them up a long, winding staircase made from carved and polished deep red paradisa wood, Tony paused at the top of the stairs in front of a locked door. His expression, when he turned to them, was the most serious he had been since they arrived.

For a moment, Jensen was taken aback, wondering what they could have done to erode the easy rapport and good will they had been building with him all afternoon. 

“I like to think I’m a pretty good judge of character, and my old friend Sam says you two are ready for this.” He pinned them in place with his stare, his eyes looking into them, searching. “She trusts both of you with her life, and I know that’s not something she would do lightly. She also says you will both fight for us, all of us, everyone like us and everyone we love. Both for different reasons, and in different ways, but unfailingly, you will come to the right conclusions and champion our cause.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “I’ve known Samantha Ferris since she was sixteen years old and her Air Force JROTC commander brought her to me because he thought she might be _like us_ and she was the damn smartest kid he’d seen in a twenty-year career. I hold her in the highest esteem. So if you are going to disappoint me, which will disappoint her, then I need you to be upfront with me. You walk away, you never saw this door. We had a nice little chat and tea, I congratulated you, showed you some trinkets, and sent you on your way.”

This time when Tony paused, Jensen and Misha shared a moment of shock that Tony’s friend “Sam,” was none other than General Ferris, and unless he was pulling their leg, she thought more highly of them than either had realized. 

“I speak for both of us,” Jensen replied, choosing his words carefully, “when I say we will act with the utmost discretion. And—we’re honored you are trusting us with this.”

“Good,” Tony replied with a genuine smile that reached his eyes. He opened the door with another key, similar to the one he’d used on the cabinet, and led them inside.

It took Jensen a moment to figure out where they were and what he was seeing, but he soon realized they were on a balcony of sorts built out of the dome’s structure, on the east side. The balcony was enclosed as a proper room with floor-to-ceiling panels enclosing it. The panels were opaque and white when they entered, but soon shifted to a smoky, transparent gray. Through them he could see the waving grass, the sunset, and in the distance, the ocean, its color subtly distorted by the evening light and the coloring of the glass. 

“Fireglass. It’s one-way, fully changeable, and nearly weapons-proof,” Tony offered. “The Phvanzi use it in the viewports of their ships.”

Jensen nodded, but his attention was already elsewhere, fixated on a series of monitors and touch screens at the other end of the curving balcony. They seemed to show changing scenes of a city under construction. It was dawn there, with orange and pinks playing across a deep purple-black sky. The buildings seemed to be built on and around massive trees, some tropical, others more typically temperate, and in the background, craggy mountains rose majestically towards the sky. It wasn’t on Earth, Jensen could tell that much. And the architecture seemed decidedly human, but... It definitely wasn’t on M’Nell, or any of the other planets with human bases that Jensen had seen. “Where?” he asked at the same time as Misha asked, “What?”

“Miradoma has two major continents; both are equatorially oriented, with both tropical and temperate zones. The western continent was created by volcanic activity that slowly, slowly built vast volcanic plains and gradually stretched the continent out onto the sea. It is covered by rolling plains, wide, slow-moving rivers, gentle hills, and a few large volcanoes scattered far and wide. The eastern continent is much older, but its terrain, too is constantly changing. Two continental plates collided and then smaller plates accreted to the western edge. Thrust faults litter the landscape while the uplifting mountains keep growing. Rivers carve gullies and gorges in the rocks and the trees grow to be 50 meters tall. When ORDA came to this planet, it had a choice, and it picked the easy path. It set about developing the Western continent and ignored the East. But it was not forgotten, and eventually it became a source of hope.”

“Hope?” asked Misha.

Tony nodded, “Hope for those of us who lived in fear of the day things would change. For a long time we didn’t know if ORDA would eventually turn on us for being different, or if they would keep us on a pedestal, but eventually make demands too unconscionable for us to follow. We found a solution.”

Jensen looked at the monitor then back at Tony, then back at the monitor. Was Tony saying what Jensen thought he was saying?

“You are looking at the future of our people. Welcome, to Aurora.”

Jensen’s first reaction was one of awe, followed closely by inappropriate humor (he’d lived in Seattle too long not to associate “Aurora” with strip malls, sketchy prostitutes, and used car dealerships), but the inappropriate humor quickly subsided. 

“How did you— who’s living there?” Misha asked, stepping closer to the monitors.

“Some people who are supposed to live here, some who are supposed to live on Earth. Some ORDA threw away, but we found. Families of ORDA personnel. Friends, others like us who we identified and spirited away to keep them out of ORDA’s grasp. It was quite easy before ORDA started restricting and tracking wormholes so zealously. We could come and go from Earth relatively easier. Then the Licinian attacks came, and it got harder, because they were watching every aperture. But we managed. Now, it has become quite difficult.”

“But you said no one could reliably open intraplanetary wormholes before us, how did you get there?”

Tony looked bemused. “Well we could have still gone by boat or jet if need be—although that would take a lot of work to go unnoticed, but nothing stopped us from going up and down—traveling to an intermediate site and traveling back.”

Jensen felt rather stupid. “Why’s it called Aurora?”

“Because it’s the first dawn, and they probably have something gorgeous like the aurora borealis thanks to the altitude and the atmospheric conditions,” Misha answered. 

“You really are as astute as Sam said,” Tony acknowledged.

“Why are you showing us this?” Jensen asked.

“So you know what we have to lose, to gain, to fight for. Right now contact and transit are restricted because ORDA is monitoring this side of the planet so closely. Their supplies are limited because they can no longer travel to and from Earth. People are restless, anxious, yet... Rumors are ORDA is pulling out. Human personnel are being transferred back to Earth. Some are saying they plan to abandon Miradoma or use this world to contain us, a prison.”

Jensen shuddered at the thought. 

“There’s just a small problem with that plan.” 

“We’re the only ones who know where Miradoma is,” Misha answered.

“What about the ships?” Jensen asked. “They made us come here on a ship.”

“A Fropali ship,” Tony noted. “Since the restrictions went into play, the Fropali have begun shuttling people to and fro. But they are neutral peacemakers, respectful of all who declare sovereignty.”

“You think they won’t tell ORDA where this planet is,” Jensen realized. “Couldn’t the Fropali also provide transit to and from Aurora? Or bring supplies?”

Tony nodded. “That is one of the many questions I hope you can answer. Your relationship with the ambassador puts you in the right position to find out. Know this, we are here for you if you need a home to run to. And we are trusting you to protect the future of our people and everything we are building here. Can we count on you?”

Jensen felt Misha’s mind brush his. The answer was simple. Now that Jensen knew it was there, he wanted desperately to go, to be somewhere he was accepted, normal...

“You have our word,” Misha answered. 

“Good.”

_Chapter 4_

“Colonel Collins, if I may have a word,” Tony said to Misha quietly as they made their way out of the house.

Jensen glanced back at them, his eyes suddenly wary.

Misha wanted to go to him, comfort him—after all, Jensen had been through an emotional wringer today. They both had. First the debrief, then Jensen’s mini breakdown, now this… It seemed like the universe went and changed on them every time they closed their eyes, every time they took a breath. They were woozy and disoriented and didn’t know what way was up. Misha had a horrible sinking feeling—no, a pit of absolute certainty—that whatever Tony wanted to tell him was going to tip the scales again, flip the universe end over end, and Misha wasn’t going to like it. He’d had enough revelations for one day, thank you very much; he didn’t think he could handle another. But he knew he would, because he had to. Just like he _had to_ hear what Tony wanted to tell him. “It’s okay, Jen. I’ll be just a minute. See you out front.”

Jensen’s eyes seemed to slide over Misha, stop on Tony, then bounce back, all the while holding that same look of trepidation. 

It was making Misha’s heart beat faster. He wanted it to stop, but whatever this was, it was something he had to hear alone. 

Jensen answered with a silent nod and palmed his hand to the door sensor, stepping outside. 

When the door slid shut behind him with a faint hiss, Tony beckoned Misha with the crook of his finger.

Reluctantly, Misha followed him, although not all the way back to the private area of the house. They stopped in the middle of the hallway under a light fixture that cast a faintly green glow around the room. Misha glanced up. There was a recording device there, he was almost certain of it. ORDA always had eyes and ears in the ceiling, in the walls, sometimes even in the ground. So why would Tony talk to him here? Why would Tony call him—”I thought you were calling me Misha,” he blurted sheepishly.

“Not for this, I’m afraid. For this, I need to address you as an officer. Retired General to Colonel,” Tony replied, his eyes dancing, but sad, so sad.

“I thought you said it wasn’t,” Misha caught himself. “That _here_ was public—”

“Oh I don’t mind an audience for what I’m about to say,” Tony answered. His voice was normal, so normal and even and level. There was no significant emotion, no indication of secrecy, absolutely nothing to match his voice to his behavior. 

Misha didn’t know what was going on, but he felt a shiver creep up his spine. Electric. 

Tony stepped closer and reached out. He clasped one hand around Misha’s elbow, and slipped the fingers of his other hand into Misha’s. A handshake. Skin-on-skin contact. Only as soon as Tony’s fingers closed—

_Of course, I’m not going to use words, or at least not audible human speech, to tell you._

Misha blinked. They hadn’t moved, but yet—everywhere around them was white. Brilliant, blinding, bright white. No features. No walls or ceiling or floor. No doors, no up or down or near or far, no exits. Just Tony and Misha alone in a great, white void. He looked down. His feet were still there! And Tony’s hands were still clasped around his hand and elbow. _What is this place? Where are we? What are you—_

_What they are going to hear me say is—_ “It has been an honor to meet you, Colonel. Keep up the good work. You do Earth proud.” 

The room around them changed in a flash, then it was back. An echo—he was standing here in the nothingness with Tony. But he had just seen, had just been… Like a recording or a memory or a dream, he had seen Tony speak. Saw him say those words in the hallway of his house under the soft green light with the ORDA surveillance device—

And then they were back and there was nothing but _them_ in the space that wasn’t space. He could see Tony’s lips moving here, could hear his voice; just the same as he could _there_.

_I don’t_ , Misha started. 

_You will soon enough._ Tony squeezed his arm tighter, and Misha felt something surge up his arm and into his brain. An electrical impulse, synaptic activity, something— _Because all they will hear you say is—_.

“The honor is mine, sir. You have been a credit to our planet, and I will strive to live up to your expectations.” They were in the hallway again, and Misha could feel his lips moving, his throat vibrating, could hear the words leaving his mouth. He was speaking. They were still there, hadn’t gone anywhere, only—

_Now he’s getting the hang of it_ , Tony observed, another great big smile spreading over his face, almost reaching his eyes, although not quite. His eyes were still sad. 

They were back in the white space, the nowhere. It was like the software loading program in _The Matrix_ , or the “white room” on “Angel”—as if they were just consciousness suspended without context. They had form because they gave themselves form. The white light was just brain activity. This place wasn’t a place, just their minds’ hasty attempt at filling in the sensory data that didn’t exist. The nowhere could have just as easily been blue or gold or purple or looked like the windswept mountains of Attaran or the room in which their physical bodies still stood. _So what do you call it, like a psychic field, or something?_ Misha said, realizing that he had been _saying_ all of his observations aloud, or what passed for aloud in a place that was in your mind only not.

_You really do watch an awful lot of science fiction for someone who actually travels in space and fights interplanetary wars for a living._ Tony’s tone was warm and gently amused, even though Misha now understood he wasn’t really speaking. _You can call this place whatever you wish, or nothing at all. That’s the great thing about reality; it’s yours to discover. There aren’t always rules and regulations about what things are_ called _. Sometimes you get to name them for yourself. Me, personally? I’ve always called this Nullspace, but you can call it whatever you would like._ Tony let go of Misha’s hand and spread his arms wide to take in the emptiness around them. He wasn’t actually moving, yet somehow Misha was interpreting his body language too. Then again, tone and emotion had always come through when he, Jensen, Katie, and the others had communicated telepathically.

_But this isn’t the same thing as telepathic communication, not like what we usually do._ It was a certainty, an understanding in Misha’s consciousness.

_Correct._

_What we usually do, that’s projecting and receiving and occasionally_ , Misha thought of the way he and Jensen _connected_ , what it felt like, _sharing, a merging of consciousness. But this is different. It’s, we’re—external._

_Yes_ , Tony agreed, moving again.

_Out there, in the real world, you’re still holding my arm._

Tony nodded. _It’s easiest to reach Nullspace when we’re asleep, but for two fully conscious minds a physical connection seems to help._ Tony took a few steps away and Misha followed. The scenery around them changed. A series of split-second flashes. Barren wasteland. Gleaming city. Green sky over ocean. A giant viewport on a deserted spaceship, staring out over the stars…

_That’s familiar._

_Of course it is. But you’ll understand why, later._ Tony said mysteriously. 

_So, is this—are we in a different dimension or phase or… Subspace? Because I get that this is different. We’re externally connected. Two consciousnesses interacting, talking, but like ordinary humans. There’s no sharing or mind melding here._

_Ah, but there could be,_ Tony said, punctuating the statement with a jab of his finger at the sky, which was now sky, and green, and they were standing in front of a waterfall. _This was Juliette’s favorite place in all the universe. The Meridian falls on Attaran Seven._

_Attaran_ Seven _, but there isn’t—_ he started to protest before realizing he’d never seen the system from space or looked at a star chart or system map. He’d just gone where ORDA had sent him. Which was to the windswept mountains and the generally harsh climates of Attaran Prime…

_ORDA does not show us everything. It’s a large moon in the habitable zone. Only one continent in a primarily subtropical zone. Very lush and verdant._

Misha nodded, looking around at the green sky, bright green grass, darker green water, glistening emerald-toned flowers… But there was something else. _You said there could be?_

_Ah, yes. There could be a blending or sharing of consciousness even in this external space. If you were here with someone with whom you shared a deep connection._ Tony glanced over his shoulder and smiled. He squatted and reached down and ran his fingers through the pool of green water, scooping handfuls of clear silica sand and letting it flow back into the water. Tony kept smiling, but his eyes were still so sad…

_You miss her._

_Yes, but you know that’s not why I’m sad._

Misha blinked, and realized his cheeks were damp with tears. He was crying silently. Something inside him—no, coming from far away, maybe both—was screaming. Lost in pain and agony. Losing a battle that could not be won. Reality was slipping. Voices were vanishing. His mind… his mind… the pressure. It was so _empty_ and yet crushing. Misha blinked twice and fell down. Opening his eyes again, he saw he was on a ship in space, in front of a giant viewport with a forcefield glowing violet, keeping the vacuum at bay. Blink again, and he was back in the whiteness of Nullspace. _What—I don’t—_

_In time, you will understand._ Tony said sagely, his voice echoing as if coming from far away. But he was right there, next to Misha’s shoulder.

_Why did you bring me here? Why are you showing me this?_ Misha hissed out around the tears, the words barely slipping from his clenched teeth. It was so bright; it made his head hurt.

Tony let out a long, audible sigh and sat down next to Misha, for once seeming as weary as his age suggested. The weight of every one of his ninety-seven years showed in the tiredness and fatigue with which he moved. _You realize that when we’re done in here, only five seconds will have passed out there._

_So ORDA won’t pick this up. So what. You could have told me when we were back in your_ private _study. There were no recording devices there._ Misha wiped at his eyes with his hands, then his sleeve, but he couldn’t seem to stop crying.

_No, I couldn’t. What I say to you in here—what you see in here—is for you and you alone._

Misha’s eyes flashed to Tony. _You want me to keep secrets from Jensen? I’m done keeping secrets from him. I did it when I had to and never again. It almost destroyed our relationship. It hurt him, almost ruined me. Forget it!_ He shouted, and the whiteness around him seemed to shift and crinkle like paper, before snapping back into place. Misha tried to scramble to his feet. This was ridiculous. He wanted out—

But Tony’s hand on his arm froze him in place. He just didn’t have the will to struggle, and he sank back down to the ground, landing with one knee tucked up against his chest. Part of him knew he needed to stay, to listen.

_I am not asking you to lie, Misha. But I need to ask you a question._

_Oh yeah, what is it?_ Misha taunted, looking at the glow of the floor. He wasn’t giving in that easily.

If he’d been hoping to get a rise out of Tony, it didn’t work. Instead, Tony asked. _I need to know how far you are willing to go. What are you willing to sacrifice, Misha? To save Jensen, to save our people?_

Misha flinched, his head snapping up to look Tony in the eye. _I’d do anything for Jensen. I’d give—anything._

_Would you die for him?_

_Of course._ There wasn’t a question. Without Jensen he was lost. He would rather lose himself, endure anything—even cease to exist—if it let Jensen continue.

_And your people? Our people?_

Misha blinked, unsure for a moment if he understood what Tony was asking. _Are you asking me if I had to choose between saving Jensen and saving, what, Earth? The other Markers out there? Who would I choose? Would I sacrifice thousands, millions, billions, for Jensen? Is that what you’re asking?_ He was shouting again, every reverberation of his voice making an imprint on the Nullspace around them.

_No. That’s what you’re asking yourself. And it’s a question you’re going to have to answer for yourself at some point._

Misha glared at him, nonplussed. He knew he didn’t like where this conversation was going.

_I’m asking if you would die for our people._

_I’d do it for Jensen, why wouldn’t I do it for everyone?_

_Even if it caused Jensen pain? Even if he’d rather go with you?_ Tony prodded.

_What?_ Misha asked, confused.

_For Jensen, helping others—serving them, saving them, fighting with and for them—comes naturally. He doesn’t need to be told or asked. He will always put_ everyone _ahead of himself. That’s why he was the one—he and Katie—to stop the Licinians. That’s why he had to go on fighting even though you were injured. No matter what you said that day, he couldn’t have stopped, even though in doing so, he forever altered his own life._

Searing pain in his back, followed by nothingness. Horrible, horrible heat. And one button standing between them and oblivion. For a moment Misha flashed back to the impression of those last moments inside the Earth, what he’d felt through his connection with Jensen. Even from a different planet, under a narcotic haze, half drowned in his own blood and the air that was slowly crushing his lungs. He had been there; for a split second, he had seen, felt, known—

And then he was back in the Nullspace, with Tony. Shaking like a leaf, sitting on a floor that was quickly fading from carved bedrock back to bright, white light. _I felt it. I know…_

_Then tell me, what would you give for our people?_

And it wasn’t a question at all, because he would do anything for Jensen and Jensen would do anything for their people. The world was always bigger than the two of them, no matter how much he wished sometimes he could pack them away in cotton wool, just the two of them, together, happy. _Anything. I would do_ anything _, because it would save Jensen. _He blinked, the tears were falling freely now. _Why are you asking me? Why did you show me this place?___

_Because you will need to remember your answer. The universe is changing, Misha, and we don’t have any say in how or when. The time is upon us and we have to be ready. You will be tempted, so tempted, to act selfishly, to take Jensen and run away, save yourselves. But you can’t do that. _Tony smiled his sad smile again and waved his hand around at the Nullspace. _As for this. You’ve been here before, and you need to remember. You need to know how to get here. There are voices disappearing from the universe—our voices, our people. They are stranded and alone, and some of them are blinking out. If they are to find their way back, it will be through here.___ Tony squeezed his shoulder.

_What are you? A psychic—_ He realized how silly that sounded the moment the words formed. _I mean, are you saying you have the gift of prophecy? Do you know what’s going to happen?_

_No_ , Tony answered, and Misha could tell that a big part of Tony wished he did, that he could see the future so he could provide more concrete details. _I’m just a very old man who’s had too much time alone in his own head. I see you; I see Jensen; I look inside, and I understand. I can see the connections forming around you, leading you, pulling you in. We’re all caught in a web, tangled up._

_Is there any way out?_ Misha asked, his voice bleak. 

_Maybe. Maybe indeed._ Tony answered. _I’m sorry Misha. But it’s time to go back now. We’ve stretched this moment long enough, and, no matter how much we might both want to hide, we both have to face the universe._ He stood, rising now like a spry young man, every hint of age gone, replaced with resolve and determination. Reaching out, he grasped Misha’s hand, pulling him to his feet. _Just remember. Jensen is strong, and as long as you’re with him_ , Tony tapped his temple, then his chest, before reaching out and placing one hand over Misha’s heart, _he will always be strong._

Misha looked down at the hand pressed flat against his chest, over his scars, bewildered. His heart gave a traitorous little thump and stumbled in its rhythm. Slowly, he brought his hands up to close around Tony’s. 

Tony shot him another smile, this one happier than the rest, and took Misha’s hand, maneuvering them so they were standing as they’d stood when they entered. _Time to go—_

_Back_ Misha thought, as they snapped back into the physical world. Tony was still squeezing his elbow, hand grasped in a firm shake. Misha’s lips were just closing on the word “expectations,” ORDA was watching, and Jensen was just outside the door. The universe had flip-flopped again, and no one but he and Tony knew it.

“Take care of yourself, and take care of that husband of yours,” Tony said, giving Misha’s hand one last shake before releasing him.

“I will,” Misha answered, giving a slight nod of acknowledgement and seeing recognition in Tony’s eyes. _Warning received and accepted._ Without another word, he turned and strode back up the hall and followed Jensen outside.

“That didn’t take long,” Jensen acknowledged with a half giggle. “Seriously, that was less than thirty seconds. The way he was gearing up, I thought he wanted to give you another speech.”

Misha just grunted, squinting in the harsh light of the setting sun. The green sky shot with purple and orange stirred memories in him. 

“What did he want, anyway?” Jensen prompted.

It took Misha a moment to realize he’d just been standing there, staring off into space for no good reason. “Oh, nothing,” he shrugged. “Just wanted to thank me for the meeting and talk pretty for the cameras.” He tore his eyes away from the sky and looked at Jensen, trying to smile, but knowing he was failing. Jensen’s eyes looked as sad as Tony’s.

“Ah, that,” Jensen answered with faux sarcasm. 

Misha knew that Jensen could sense more had happened, but even if he wanted to, Misha couldn’t share the whole of what he was feeling… it was like part of him was still stuck out there in subspace—the Nullspace—protecting him from sharing. 

“You alright?” Jensen asked.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Misha quipped, striking closer to the levity he intended. “After all, you’re the one who _ran_ most of the way out there.”

“Oh, that.” Jensen’s amusement was genuine this time. “Can we just chalk it up to a long day and go back… home, or wherever they want us?”

“Sure,” Misha agreed, giving Jensen’s hand a quick squeeze before they set off back down the driveway. “Maybe we can get Tony’s people or ORDA to give us a ride, so we can go back and relax.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

They got their ride, from Tony’s people. And for the fifteen or so minutes it took to navigate the open spaces and roads back to the complex where they’d been assigned temporary quarters, they got to relax and just be Jensen and Misha and not Captain Ackles and Colonel Collins. But their peace was short-lived, as Misha had known it would be. 

Less than a half hour back in their quarters, a lieutenant came by with new orders. Misha was going out on another mission. Exploratory and humanitarian, scheduled to last at least a month. Meanwhile Jensen—and their friend Katie—were being shipped back to Earth… By ship. For the second time in their lives ORDA was ordering them not to travel by wormhole, and Misha was sure it was a sign of the coming apocalypse.

_Chapter 5_

Jensen scowled at the board moving his game piece three spaces and gritting his teeth as the computer generated the next change of circumstances. He should have seen it coming, but for the third time that day he was caught flat-footed, the virtual civilization he’d built unprepared, and unable to recover without stumbling and suffering great losses. The game was playing out as a metaphor for his life, only he was even more uncertain more lost with how to proceed than the foundering civilization represented on the board before him.

“Jensen, what troubles you,” Foalar asked.

Jensen startled and looked up to see her game piece set aside, furred hands clasped beneath her chin, her expression knowing. The only good thing to come out of ORDA’s latest orders was that it was _Foalar’s_ ship, the Fropali flagship this time, that was ferrying him back to Earth.

Right... Jensen’s awareness expanded beyond the game and its parallels to real life, settled into the here and now. He was in Foalar’s quarters on the Fropali delegation’s flagship playing Covmet. It had been a daily tradition that had started when Foalar first invited Jensen on her mission. 

“What makes you think I’m troubled?” Jensen queried, struggling to keep his tone neutral.

“I may not be human,” Foalar paused the word sounding a little awkward as it fell from her lips, “but I am observant and skilled in reading behavior, body language. If I was not, I would not make much of a negotiator.” Her mouth furrowed in a way Jensen recognized as the Fropali equivalent of biting one’s lip. “You are distracted, and more than your rather abysmal performance would suggest.” She moved her hand in a sweeping motion towards the board.

Jensen hung his head, in embarrassment and opened his mouth to explain, but Foalar tapped him on the chin forestalling his response and drawing his gaze back to her.

“You are depressed, doubtful. You doubt yourself.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I—” Jensen began, but hesitated. He was both embarrassed and terrified to voice his thoughts. Part of him was convinced he was crazy, ashamed he was even giving the new ORDA leaders’ position serious thought. But another part of him believed Foalar and the other supporters were the ones who were crazy—that, or they were just waiting for Jensen and the other Markers to come to their senses. Jensen held Foalar’s gaze, looking for some sign she knew what he was thinking and would save him the trouble of vocalizing his thoughts.

The Fropali weren’t telepathic like Markers—at least not with other species—but they were remarkably perceptive and intuitive, and sometimes that was even more effective than sharing thoughts directly. He saw _something_ in her expression and body language, but it was clear she wasn’t going to make this easy for him.

“I just—” he started again. “I keep wondering if maybe the hum—the new leaders of ORDA are right about Markers. Maybe we’re wrong to be offended by their new policies and goals. Maybe they’re right and we should be grateful to them, for looking for a—a cure. Maybe Markers really are infected by an engineered virus, needing to be cured. We’re victims of bioterrorism—thousands of years ago, Licinians came to Earth and did this to some humans, and now humans are close to having the technology to fix it. Undo the disease... And they just want to help us, cure us, make us norm... Like them.” 

Foalar didn’t speak. She remained still, motionless, rolling her game piece back and forth between articulate, furred fingers. “You don’t really believe you suffer from a disease, Jensen.”

Mouth already half-open to protest, Jensen gulped instead when he caught Foalar’s eye. The almond-shaped, amethyst orbs peered out at him from the burnt umber fir of her face and fixed him in place. He stare seemed to penetrate to his soul, seeing truths even Jensen didn’t realize or couldn’t admit to himself. She was so serious, genuine, honest... Jensen found himself not wanting to let her down, and that meant he had to find the truth within himself. Biting his lip, he almost threw out a quip about his disability... But that wasn’t the result of being a Marker. Only it sort of was...

“The first Markers were infected with a genetically engineered endogenous retrovirus that rewrote their DNA and altered germ cells to match. We think the Licinians even programmed in some kind of special biofeedback to slow mutations and genetic drift. And then there’s the people like Jared, like Katie, who were human and then were... Changed.” He swallowed hard, unable to meet Foalar’s gaze any longer. “That sure as hell sounds like an infectious disease to me, and it was caused by a virus.”

Foalar’s face was doing that knotted, drawn-tight, furrowed, pinched thing that was the Fropali equivalent of a frown. The expression looked so physically painful—all the skin of her face was folded into tension-induced wrinkles—Jensen felt instantly bad in putting it there. “Were you alive five thousand years ago?”

It was Jensen’s turn to frown. Surely she meant it rhetorically. But no, Foalar was clearly waiting for him to respond.

“No, I wasn’t, obviously,” Jensen replied.

Foalar set her piece down on the board two spaces to the right of its previous position, securing advancements for her virtual civilization in the process. “So you were never ‘normal,’ as you almost called it. You were born as you are?” 

“Yes,” Jensen hedged. “But I didn’t know what I was, so I never felt or acted any different from regular people. I wasn’t using any freaky alien abilities because I didn’t know about them.”

Foalar nodded, a very human behavior she’d picked up in the time Jensen had known her. “Hmpf,” she grunted. “And I suppose someone _told_ you about your abilities before you opened your first interplanetary wormhole, something no one in ORDA had figured out how to do before?”

“No,” Jensen said sullenly, wanting to protest further, but noting Foalar hadn’t said no “human” or no “marker,” but no one in ORDA... Was she suggesting others outside of ORDA had figured it out?

“Not long after we first met, we had a conversation in which you asked me if I ‘had a problem’ with your relationship with your husband. I was confused until you explained the beliefs and opinions that abound on Earth. I had hoped attitudes would have changed significantly since the Fropali’s last direct contact with Earth, but alas, they had not. You went on to tell me about the presumption most Terrans have that individuals will be attracted only to members of the ‘opposite’ sex and will be monogamous. Yet you went through a process of self-discovery to figure out you are gay?”

“Yes.” Jensen’s tone was flat. For the first time since their meeting, Jensen felt genuinely hurt by Foalar. He’d told her about his life, and now she was throwing it back at him? Why?

“So no one told you you were gay, in fact, many told you the opposite?”

“Yes.” The word was clipped, painful. It felt like shards of glass tearing their way out of him to admit. Jensen tried to focus instead on the board and his move, but the pieces seemed to swim before him, and he couldn’t concentrate on the options or his desired outcomes. Instead he dug his fingers into the flesh of his thighs, hating the unnatural unfeeling sensation the action produced.

“Were you gay before you knew what it was called? Did you change, or would you still be gay even if you had never acted on your feelings?” Foalar’s voice was gentler, and at least now her face had lost the last vestiges of the wrinkled frown.

“I’ve always been gay, and yeah, I was gay before I ever had sex. What is your point?” He added through gritted teeth. The conditions on the game board changed again, he had lingered so long, and now he found himself looking down on a collection of facts that made no sense. He hadn’t anticipated the change, far from it, and he hadn’t planned his virtual civilization with this reality in mind.

“You’ve always been who you are, whether it’s gay, or a talented telepath capable of opening and traversing wormholes, sensing others of your kind, understanding a vast assortment of languages, and surviving in a variety of climes and conditions.” Foalar countered.

“You mean I’ve always been a Marker,” Jensen said glumly.

“No, you are who you are, yet you continue to use the name your oppressors have given you. You do not like the term Marker. You know it is inaccurate, and the associations it carries with it make—how do you put it—your skin crawl. 

“They’re not my oppressors,” Jensen protested, giving up the pretense of planning his move and flailing his arms out to the side for emphasis. “If anything we’re the ones oppressing them. We can open wormholes and they can’t. We can go to environments they can’t survive. They have to depend on us for interplanetary travel. We can communicate without words, which puts the human members of our teams at a disadvantage. Hell, I got shot in the back, damaged my spine, and I can still _run_ and jump and climb and fight almost like nothing happened. It’s not fair!”

“Jensen, I cannot open wormholes either, nor can I communicate telepathically, is that fair? Then again, I can climb trees thousands of feet tall and lift three times my bodyweight, both of which I believe you cannot do. Is _that_ fair?” Foalar quizzed, leaning back in her seat to regard Jensen intently.

“It’s not the same, and you know it,” Jensen shot back, his face growing uncomfortably warm under her continued scrutiny. “You are a member of an entirely different species from a different planet with different conditions and a different evolutionary history. Of course you’re going to have differences from humans!” Jensen shot back, raising his voice. He knew the moment the outburst was over, he was going to forget it. Foalar was a great mentor. He respected her, and quite often he didn’t feel worthy of her attention. But she wasn’t a pushover, and she didn’t suffer abuse silently. He had crossed a line in his stubborn anger. Foalar would prove her objective, but she wouldn’t be gentle about it. The way she chose to illustrate her point would undoubtedly _hurt_.

After an uncomfortably long silence, Foalar made her move. “What about the Licinians who share many of the same abilities as you?”

“They’re a separate species. They’re supposed to be telepathic and open wormholes. We only share those traits because they gave them to us,” Jensen pleaded.

“So you and millions like you should be punished because some rogue scientists altered your ancestors’ genes without their knowledge?”

“No,” Jensen protested. “Not punished, made right. I—I don’t blame the rogue Licinians for what they did—”

“But you believe the humans—or rather this vocal faction of them—has a right to fear you, to desire to change you?” Foalar interjected.

“Maybe they’re just setting us right, making us... human.” Jensen swallowed around the growing lump in his throat. He had asked himself the same questions every day. Struggled with the answers and the implications, and his desire to hold onto the fantastical world he had grown to love—wormholes, sentient alien life, interplanetary travel, telepathy, his body’s ability to reroute messages around his damaged central nervous system. He wanted to hold on, but he kept coming back to the realization that it wasn’t natural, and it gave him an unfair advantage. Having his fears thrown back in his face was painful, but he was really starting to believe they were right. Who was he to argue?

“But the alterations the Licinians made were necessary. They ensured the survival of your people and the humans of Earth.” Foalar’s voice was deceptively calm and even. Jensen’s protests had troubled her, he could tell, but he didn’t know why, and so far she hadn’t tipped her hand.

“Yes, and now the danger has passed, and we are no longer needed,” Jensen admitted.

“I do not understand why you simply cannot coexist? Because some think you are no longer _needed_ , a group of humans gets to turn you into something you are not and never have been? Fundamentally alter you?” 

“No! They’re just putting us right,” Jensen disagreed, shaking his head.

“I like you just the way you are, Jensen.” Foalar’s eyes grew sadder. “Yet you believe it would be acceptable for ORDA’s leaders to alter a child to suit their tastes.”

“Wha—a child?” Jensen gasped reeling.

“You don’t think they would stop with just their soldiers. If ORDA has a problem with you, they have a problem with all of your kind,” Foalar reasoned.

“My kind,” Jensen echoed, struggling to wrap his mind around the concept.

“Yes, your kind. This isn’t about petty jealousy or disabling the extra abilities of a handful of agents—although those motives certainly do play a part—what ORDA has proposed is the systematic annihilation of an entire race, an obliteration of the heritage and history of a people for the soul sake of achieving sameness. Jealousy, fear of the unknown, xenophobia, hatred towards your progenitors, ORDA is allowing those base emotions to erase you, violate you, dictate who you are and what you can become, and you want to let them.”

“We’re not natural!” Jensen spat, seething.

“I thought that was what the bigots said about your relationship with Misha?” 

As Foalar spoke, Jensen felt the import of his words hit him with a resounding _smack_. He flinched and reeled as if struck. Had he really just gone there?

“Your people are hybrids with origins in two species. Yet modern humans are the descendants of many different hominid species and subspecies who interbred. Is it right to hate other humans for lack of purity?” Her tone was so casually academic, melodic in that distinctly Fropali way, that it made the statement all the more shocking.

“Of course not,” he protested.

“In fact, some of the darkest moments in Earth’s history have come when sentient beings turned on others and destroyed them, murdered, raped, violated because they were different.”

“Yes,” Jensen admitted. He was ashamed and lost and confused. Tears were coming to his eyes. How did he express what he felt inside, the bubble of pain and anger was growing, twisting, threatening to burst or crush him or collapse into a void, leaving him hollow.

“Were they right?” Foalar prodded.

“Of course not!” Jensen’s scream was so loud it hurt his throat, and he was a bit surprised no one came running.

“Of course not,” Foalar echoed. “In fact you dedicated your life to writing injustices, supporting those mistreated, because you were mistreated yourself.”

Jensen didn’t answer, his emotions were too close to tipping over the edge.

“You recognize how wrong it is. You wouldn’t let someone take Misha away from you, allow them to alter you to become straight, just to alleviate their fear and hatred. You would fight back. Why can you not see this is the same? They wish to destroy your people. Fight back.”

“But I can see the logic in their argument. We were engineered. What we can do feels unfair.” It was an admission, not a rationalization.” I understand the jealousy. I understand why they’re scared. I feel like I have too much power sometimes. I feel guilty for being able to walk. If the general public found out—”

“But if the humans have their way, the public will never find out. They would erase you rather share the world that holds both your heritage. What if you are needed again? What if your genome holds the clues to saving lives? If they ‘cured’ you and it turns out your people’s traits would have made all the difference?”

“I don’t know,” Jensen admitted. 

“If the rogue Licinians had not contributed to your hybrid nature, humans and all life on Earth would have died out. Does that intervention not make humans as unnatural as you?” Foalar observed.

“It’s not—” 

“Listen to yourself. You recognize the fallacy of others’ attacks on your sexual identity and have chosen to accept yourself and others like you. You see no inherent injustice in the differences between the Fropali and Humans, or Humans and Licinians. You condemn attempts at genocide, be they committed by humans against other groups of humans or by one sentient species against each other. You admit the contribution of your people to saving all humanity from precisely such an attack. But when it comes to accepting your identity, your abilities, the right of your people to their continued existence, you give up and accept the fate a select group of humans would hand to you?” Foalar’s voice resonated with her disapproval, and Jensen’s face flushed with shame. 

He trembled in his seat waiting for her to continue, twitching with the need to apologize to somehow make it right. Foalar respected Jensen’s people, wanted to help them. If he convinced her they weren’t worth protecting... What was he doing? Yes, his personal emotions were a conflicted mess, but he was also for better or worse unofficially representing every Marker out there. He shook himself again. But Foalar wasn’t agreeing with him, so chances were, she wouldn’t reject Markers on the whole, but would find someone else to mentor. Someone more deserving, and Jensen would get pulled from the negotiating detail and get shipped back to Earth for reassignment... Which was a terrifying prospect given the current mood and upheaval at ORDA.

“I—I’m sorry,” Jensen stammered, flushing further with the inadequacy of his apology. “I’m sorry for disappointing you, Ambassador. If—”

“Jensen,” Foalar’s voice had changed again. Now it was pitched higher and softer, gentle but firm, it was a tone Jensen had only heard her use around the most timid and traumatized of refugees. And now she was directing it at him. 

He froze, eyes wide, confusion overriding his embarrassment. “I know this isn’t all about me.”

“And I would not have suggested you thought it was. Self-sacrificing is your style, purely self-centered is not.” She made an abortive gesture with one hand that Jensen wasn’t certain how to interpret. “Whatever you are thinking, stop. Your assessment of my reaction is patently incorrect. My disappointment is not directed at you, but at the culture and those within it who have conditioned you to react as you are, who continue to hate those unlike them and use the fear of difference as a wedge to divide the sentient beings of your planet. My frustration is that the secrecy on which your government has long insisted and used as a means of control is being now turned against your people as a weapon. I am sorry to ask so much of one so young as you, one whose life has already been so filled with change and upheaval and sacrifice, but you are one of very few in a position to change the fate of an entire people.” She leaned forward as she spoke, looming over the forgotten game board between them, despite her diminutive stature. “In the depths of your being, the center of your conscience and consciousness, do you believe what ORDA’s leadership has proposed is right?” Her violet eyes burned like impossible suns, and Jensen found himself unable to look away.

His hands clenched to fists, his left gripping so tight on the game piece its crystalline form squeaked under the strain. At his core, at his center, that was the place his telepathy and other _inhuman_ abilities bloomed from. As his core... The place that defined his sense of self was something ORDA’s new leaders sought to utterly destroy. It was not a disease to be cured, no more than was his love for Misha, no more than his personality. The _evil_ and wrongness of ORDA’s proposal and their current objectives made his stomach flip and his skin crawl, while his hear hammered harder and faster against his ribs, as equal parts adrenaline and T. beta flooded into his bloodstream, filling him with the urgent, desperate need to flee. When he brushed aside the false rationalization, and saw the plan for what it was, there was no way he could deny, no way, he could lie... “No,” he said, barely more than a whisper, his voice weak with the strain to keep from bolting. “I—I...” he stammered, unsure what he was trying to say, but needing to convey the sense of horror and urgency that had flooded through him.

Recognition bloomed in Foalar’s eyes, and her furred hands grasped tight around Jensen’s right hand, their warmth tethering and grounding him, giving him the reassurance to let go of his control and start to relax. “May I ask you a question, Jensen?”

“Sure,” Jensen said around a gulp, when his breathing was back under control enough to answer.

“Do you consider yourself human?”

And there it was in black and white, or at least, plain language. If there was one thing Jensen appreciated about the Fropali in general and Foalar in particular, it was their ability to cut right to the heart of the matter, calling you on all your bullshit in the process and blindsiding you with the questions you were so too afraid to ask. You’d be so shocked that you wouldn’t have time to dissemble or convince yourself with a story made of half-truths. And now Jensen had been analyzed and cut through, shell cracked, left bleeding and raw and forced to see the truth that lay inside.

On one hand it was a silly, no, _stupid_ question. Of course he was human. He’d been told he was human all his life—as a child there had been religious overtones, he was created in God’s image. As he grew up and his understanding of the universe changed, as his understanding of himself changed, he’d often wondered—doubted—he was a good person; he’d struggled with his sexuality, growing more and more certain his attraction to other men wasn’t something he could will away, wasn’t something that felt bad or that his conscience could recognize as evil, no matter what others said. But the question was whether he was a _good_ person, not whether he was a human. And that was part of the problem. Until eighteen months ago, he’d had no clue there was a difference outside of science fiction. Person meant sentient being, and the only type of those on Earth, or anywhere, were humans. But that wasn’t true. And now, Jensen knew differently. He had human ancestry, although he wasn’t sure how far back he’d have to go to find someone who qualified as an ordinary human. But that wasn’t his only ancestry. Rogue Licinians had engineered a significant portion of his DNA, and that heritage had been passed down from generation to generation. Even when he didn’t know it was there, that there was anything different, he had been. He was a hybrid. Formed from two distinct species, bearing traits of both, but like neither. And claimed by neither.

The Licinian government had tried to wipe out all traces of sentient life on Earth, and that most certainly included people like him. All he had to do was close his eyes and see the memories of Misha’s old team being slaughtered. Even now there were Licinian sects who refused to participate in negotiations with Earth because of the Markers. And humans... Well, most of them didn’t know, and if they did, they would probably react with fear and hatred. And those who knew people like Jensen existed, more and more of them each day were coming out in opposition, trying to erase them, trying to convince them all they were just sick and their illness had outlasted its usefulness. Sure some of them were responding to the Licinians' hostility towards hybrids, but not all, and even so, Jensen didn’t much appreciate being thrown under the bus for the sake of galactic peace. The Licinians were in trouble for running around and trying to snuff out potential competition, so how come it was okay for ordinary humans to do it?

And if they assimilated Jensen and people like him, what of their history? What about all the generations before? Artists and poets and scientists and soldiers? People whose contributions to Earth and the universe were shaped and informed by who and what they were. There would be no one left to claim them, recognize who they had truly been, appreciate how they were able to interact with the world. As it stood now, the history books didn’t know—that Da Vinci may have actually seen flying machines to inspire his designs, that Xanadu was a real place, not just an erotic opium dream; that H.G. Wells was obsessed with time travel because he desperately wanted to know if humanity would evolve to echo one of the more advanced civilizations he’d visited, or if it would fall apart; that Van Gogh’s internal conflict stemmed in part from butting his head against the stubborn obstinacy of ORDA’s immoveable policies. Would anyone know, would there be any record if the current generation ceased to be, and suddenly became human? And what of every soldier who had died, been injured, or faced torture, many of them long, long before the Licinians once again became a threat to Earth? Did their lives suddenly not matter? Would they be swept under the rug and forgotten? 

The questions made him sick, his skin grew clammy and his pulse raced, and he was filled with the same fear he’d had in high school, when he’d finally realized he was gay, and that wasn’t going to—he didn’t want it to—change. They could see it in him, the difference. Only this time it wasn’t one aspect of who he was, but everything. And it _showed_ more too. He’d felt joy and belonging when he’d learned about all the Markers who came before him—there was an affinity that transcended time and space. He’d felt it again when they visited Miradoma and met Tony. It was similar to the feeling he’d had at his first Pride festival, a sense of found family and shared understanding. There was so much he wanted to learn from others like him, and if the humans had their way, there would be nothing left to learn, no more opportunities.

And that brought him back to the question. Regardless of how he’d understood himself as a child, regardless of how reflexive it was to equate person to human, other people had made up their minds and decided what human meant, and it didn’t include Jensen, not as he was born, as he existed and chose to exist. So as long as Jensen wished to remain himself, the answer was, “No. I’m not human.”

Foalar, who had remained silent throughout Jensen’s contemplation, made a loud clicking noise that translated to something akin to “triumph.” She patted Jensen’s hand, and her expression shifted from concerned to victorious. “What are you?”

“I’m a hybrid... We’re a hybrid species,” Jensen clarified.

“Not a ‘Marker’ then?” she queried, head cocked to one side.

“No,” Jensen hedged, swallowing around the word, when he was hit with a surge of confidence. “That’s an inaccurate term human scientists applied to us before they understood what we were.” It was true, the term predated ORDA’s understanding of DNA and was later retconned to reflect what early geneticists characterized as genetic markers common to all with the ability to use alien technology. They hadn’t mapped the complete genome yet; they didn’t know. But the problems with the term didn’t end there. “ORDA continued to use the term even when they knew it was wrong because it gave them control. It doesn’t acknowledge we’re a distinct people, while highlighting our differences from humans. It makes us feel bad about ourselves, discourages us from forming a species-specific or ethnic identity, while encouraging ostracization from our human compatriots.” Jensen sighed. “We have no other name.”

“Then you must claim your identity, your heritage, and name yourselves. Your existence and that of your people should not be defined by others, least not by those who would destroy you.” Foalar released his hand and picked up her discarded game piece.

“I don’t want to be an enemy of humans. My friends...” Jensen shook his head. “We’ve shared a planet. I bear them no ill will.”

“Then work for peace. Demonstrate your intentions in words and deeds. But always remember, you don’t always get to choose your enemies.”

“You mean ORDA might decide to persecute us, hunt us regardless of what we do, even turn others against us.” Even the old administration would have done that. Not with Markers, they’d had too much clout, and at the time ORDA had been convinced it needed them, but with some other group, absolutely. They did it to individuals and families all the time. Jensen shuddered at the memory of his client’s brother, of the story ORDA would have manufactured about Jared. He knew with absolute certainty the new leadership would turn on them make them out to be monsters... “They’ll make us out as villains to people on Earth and out in the galaxy,” he said with terrible certainty, his stomach dropping to the floor.

Foalar nodded in agreement. “As I said, the secrecy that benefitted you both in the past no longer serves either of you. They believe they no longer require your services and as such have no need to continue tolerating your presence.”

“You don’t think they’d consider exposing the public to—” he let out a disbelieving chuckle “— _reality_ to make them afraid of us.”

Foalar spread her hands wide, palms up, “It is possible, if disclosure suited their aims, but they need not tell, ‘the whole truth’ in order to spread fear.”

A needle-sharp tingle raced down his spine and around his torso, settling in the tissues most damaged by the Licinian plasma blasts, and causing him to gasp. “The virus angle—if push comes to shove that will be their first lie about us.” His tone was incredulous, but the realization rang true. Unless the situation changed dramatically, it was only a matter of time. “What can we do? How—Foalar, how?”

“Band together, claim your identity, take control—” she leaned close again “—ask for _help_. And remember the truth can be your weapon too. Do not let them define you, defy their expectations, and stay true to yourself. All will help you to save your people.” 

The game computer chirped and the conditions changed again. Jensen glanced down, shocked to find the conditions were now much more favorable to his simulated civilization than they had been throughout the entire game. He wasn’t suddenly _winning_ , but with a little thought and strategic planning, he had a fighting chance.

“Most of all, strive for awareness of the universe. Conditions change, and nothing lasts forever. If you can hunker down and wait it out, time your moves to leverage the conditions most favorable to you, you can change the tide of an unbalanced war, swing opinion in your favor, shift the focus to peace.” She wasn’t talking about the game. 

Filled with new energy and a renewed resolve, Jensen sat up straighter, resting his elbows on his knees and contemplated the game before him. A few careful trades, a small sacrifice here, rebuilding the infrastructure there, and in a handful of turns his civilization would be back on track, only this time it would be better diversified, prepared for the unexpected twists and turns the game generator threw his way. He let the crystalline game piece twirl between his fingers before setting it down advancing it four spaces forward. The game computer chirped and registered the new tallies of resources and conditions, Jensen’s list much more favorable than it had been after the last dozen turns. 

“Much better,” Foalar nodded with approval. “I will make a leader of you yet.”

“I never wanted to be a leader,” Jensen replied. A simple statement, not tinged with innuendo or complaint.

“And that is a big part of why you must lead,” she replied, moving her piece.

It was his turn again, and Jensen paused in contemplation, not over game strategy—he had already planned his next five moves with reasonable contingencies—but over a much more concrete dilemma. He had to ask, but a part of him was afraid if he took this step, began planning, his actions would inadvertently bring about the future he hoped to avoid. He didn’t want to declare war on ORDA. But then again, there was waiting for the right time and carefully considering one’s options, and then there was being paralyzed with indecision... Besides, Foalar had almost given him and express invitation. _No time like the present._ “Ambassador,” Jensen began earning Foalar’s undivided attention with the use of her formal title. “If the time comes and either ORDA or humanity as a whole turns against my people, will we have your support, and the support of the Fropali Alliance?”

“Are you making a formal diplomatic request for recognition of your people?” her tone was guarded.

“Yes, and an official request for assistance, sanctuary, allegiance, and defense if need be,” Jensen clarified.

Foalar cocked her head again. “I was hoping you would ask. I have already begun the formal process for recognition, and I am confident it will be approved in short order, as will be your request for support. The Fropali Alliance will be pleased to call itself friends to the...”

Jensen smiled, “I’m gonna have to think about our name for a while, maybe talk to some of the others. This isn’t all about me, after all.”

“No, it is not,” Foalar agreed with the equivalent of a smile.

“As soon as we have a name, you’ll be the first to know,” Jensen promised 

“I look forward to learning your people’s name.” Foalar gestured towards the game board. “Now, shall we continue with our game?

Jensen relaxed and followed through with the move he had planned. He’d never named anything so important before, but he was looking forward to finally having a name to go with his identity.

_Chapter 6_

Upon his return to Earth, Jensen, Katie, and various other temporary team members were sent on a number of humanitarian missions, and nothing else. They found themselves completely excluded from combat, first contact, and any of the other positions to which they had previously been assigned and trained. At home, the situation grew worse and worse, with their rights and freedoms being restricted more and more every day. One day, they were they met another Phvanzi refugee from Sebh’alte who told them a chilling tale of what the Licinians were capable of. They soon understood a Licinian faction was working with Marker-phobic humans on Earth. They would stop at nothing to destroy all those touched or marked by the deviant Licinians. In other words, they would find a way to kill or obliterate every Marker in existence.

“You know, we really need something to call ourselves other than _Marker_ ,” Katie complained. “That’s what they call us, and they want to erase us from existence.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Jensen admitted. Ever since Foalar had planted the idea in his mind, he’d dwelled on it. “I was thinking maybe… Naiian, n-a-i-i-a-n.”

“Okay, why Naiian?” Katie asked. 

“Well it’s silly, but we’re all about one-ness with the wormholes, right? That’s a huge part of our heritage, and on Stargate, they make wormholes look like water, and in mythology, the water spirits were Naiads, so…”

“I like it,” Katie agreed. 

Having a new name was a bright point in the daily drudgery of more and more restrictions. It gave them something to cling to as the days stretched on and blended together.

For a while it looked like ORDA was done flexing its muscles. They were restricted to base when not on offworld assignment, but it was tolerable. The next mission to M’Nell, changed all that.

~~~

“So a refugee in the village where we’re supplying humanitarian aid says, ‘I know you, there’s a cave you need to see, a cave with a message, and you just come running?” Katie asked, huffing a little with the exertion of hiking up hill at a jog. “Ow,” she hissed as another branch came back and slapped her in the face. The trail was very narrow, laden with roots, and sharp-needled conifers that caught and tore at her uniform and pack. She was field fit all right, but that didn’t cover sustained running at superhuman speeds on terrain.

“Considering the last time a refugee told me a secret it led to me uncovering a plot to blow up the planet? Um, yeah,” Jensen shouted back. 

_Wait for it._

“That was a rhetorical question, wasn’t it?” 

_Thwack!_ Two more branches snapped back, the first hitting Jensen in the face, the second catching Katie in the chest. The hissed and tried to block out the stinging pain. They could avoid all the slapping and stinging and stabbing if they moved at a normal speed, but the cave was five klicks outside the settlement in a semi-mountainous area, and even running as they had been, it was risky. Someone would undoubtedly realize they were gone, and these days, that was really dangerous. 

“I just think this would be a really good way to lure you into a trap, that’s all,” Katie conceded. 

“We still have to check it out,” Jensen answered.

“Yeah, and I still wish we could have taken backup,” Katie muttered. 

Jensen stopped abruptly, causing Katie to skid a little bit on the damp needles littering the forest floor. “I know,” he explained, looking over his shoulder.

Jensen had just started to speak again, when they both felt it. The familiar pull of another Marker or Marker-compatible biotechnology. There was a moss-covered outcropping of bedrock up ahead, not quite at the top of the hill they were climbing, and it was covered with nanolumes. Even though neither of them could see the biomechanical nanotech, they both knew it was there. The pull from it was so strong, Katie found herself reaching out to touch it without a conscious decision to do so.

“Think this is what I’m supposed to see?” Jensen asked, brushing sweat and hair away from his forehead with his right arm. “The Attahrah aren’t telepathic as far as I know... Maybe someone else relayed the... message...” Jensen’s voice trailed off.

Katie looked on in awe at the play of glowing green light around her hand where it had touched the stone. “I’m pretty sure that’s the message.”

“I think you’re probably right,” Jensen agreed, his voice cracking a little.

The nanolumes weren’t just on the rock, they were spread across the rock face in a pattern. _Ackles, look inside._

“So,” Katie, hedged. “Guess we go inside.”

“I’m not really seeing a choice here,” he admitted. 

And that was true, because no matter what, they needed to know more. Anyone who could lure them here, who understood enough about nanolumes to manipulate them into a message was dangerous, and ignorance about the message, even if it was a trap, was just another way to get them killed. “Wish we could call in backup,” Katie admitted. The set up was so eerily reminiscent of the time Jensen had taken her to find nanolumes in the woods, when she became a Marker—a _Naiian_ —that it was difficult to imagine this not being some sort of trap. But there was no chance of backup. Even _before_ the latest crackdown on everything Licinian in origin, it would have been reckless to alert others that they could sense and find nanolumes. 

Nodding his assent, Jensen said, “Come on,” and began walking along the sheer rock, looking for an entrance.

Katie followed, treading carefully to keep her balance. The rock was damp and slippery, the farther they moved from the path, the steeper the ground became. Erosion had carried away much of the soil, leaving more rock, slippery, exposed, and covered with moss beneath their feet. She was concentrating so intently on the ground that she almost missed it. 

Jensen had walked right by, stopping the moment he was past it. 

Katie followed the shadow on the rock over and up ad Jensen reached out and pulled back the long curtain of vines. There, a crack, a gap in the rock big enough for a roughly average-sized human or Naiian to slip through if they were willing to duck and walk sideways. 

“I got it,” she said, taking the tangle of grey-green vines from Jensen and holding it to the side so he could enter.

Without a word, he turned he slipped inside.

Katie followed. It was dark and cool inside the small cave, which opened up quickly once they had squeezed through the crack—a roughly dome-shaped space with water-smoothed walls, and an irregular roof about three meters high. It was dark, the only light coming from the narrow entrance, weak and diffuse through the filter of vines, and...

“Wow,” Jensen breathed as he moved toward the second source of light, a stretch of blue glow emanating from the wall and ceiling farthest from the entrance. 

Katie stepped closer, peering intently at the strange wall. It was covered with a sort of bioluminescent film, a moss or algae perhaps, definitely not nanolumes since the color was wrong, and it glowed even without touch. For that matter the wall and the material on it was telepathically inert. 

“Is that what I think it is?” Jensen whispered as he approached. He was pointing at something.

Katie looked, following his finger as her eyes adjusted to the light. There, in front of the stretch of blue wall was a black ORDA clamshell case, the type used for secure transport of sensitive equipment, an on top of it was an oblong silver instrument,. The ends were blunted and imbedded with blinking lights. A P’hvansi holorecorder/projector tube. When activated, it was capable of projecting a moving three-dimensional image without the need for a screen. It was dormant now, but had a message waiting; Katie could tell by the pattern of blue and amber lights at both ends, lights that shifted to red and green as Jensen reached out to touch it. 

Jensen gasped and they both jumped back as a life-size, three-dimensional image of someone neither of them had seen in a long time flickered to life and filled the room before them.

“Holy shit,” Jensen breathed, his voice sounding as shaken as he looked. He was standing transfixed, and Katie couldn’t blame him. The last time either of them had seen the person in the holo was on quite possibly the worst day of Jensen’s life. 

_Christian Kane._

~~~

“Ackles, if you’re watching this it means I’m dead, and I probably had to kill myself. Not surprising really. They’re hunting me, tracking me, not just the people Gen. Ferris sent after me. I can’t keep running forever, and I can’t lose them either.”

“What the hell?” Katie asked, anger rising, as she began to look around frantically. Was this a trap? Some sick plan Kane set up to make sure he exacted his revenge on Jensen? Katie started backing towards the cave entrance. She was about to suggest that Jensen do the same, when the hologram spoke again.

“I know what you must think of me. I know how horrible I was to you in life, and I am sure you will probably never forgive me for what I did to Jared,” In the holo, Kane stopped pacing and turned with eerie accuracy to face the point where Jensen was standing. “If he’s still alive, I hope you’ll explain why.”

“Why what?” Jensen interjected with a growl of hostility. Teeth clenched, he glared at the image.

“I know you think I’m a coward, a bigoted asshole, and a monster. And I won’t deny the last two. Just know I realize now how wrong I was, and I am sorry for all the pain I caused, and if my shooting the jamming field component got the planet blown up, I’m sorry, but it might be for the best—”

“For the best?” Katie scoffed in horror.

“Look I know, I know how this sounds, but I don’t have time to do this right, so I am just begging you to listen.” On the holo, Kane ran his hands through his hair in frustration, turning his head to the side to reveal a long, cut that was still bleeding sluggishly. At the same moment, the holo flickered and stuttered, like static and cracks in midair. Kane leaned towards them and reached out of the projection, swearing at something unseen. 

“Oh this is bullshit,” Jensen snapped, and turned to leave.

“Wait!” Katie exclaimed as her hand closed around Jensen’s wrist, holding him in place. In the projection, Kane’s eyes were haunted, hunted, and weary. Looking closer she realized he was wearing a bloodstained uniform and had at least a few days’ worth of stubble on his cheeks. It wasn’t clear from the holo if he was in the same cave as they were now standing, but it was clear he was somewhere dimly lit and indoors. There had been caves on Alcynon... She’d been there for the rescue part of that cluster fuck, but that planet was hot enough even Naiians sweated, and in the projection Kane’s skin was dry, grease-stained and dusty, but not sweaty.

“Look, Jensen. Just look.”

Jensen turned slowly back around, as if scared of what he would find. He looked, then took a step closer, and another. “How is that possible?” Jensen breathed. The confusion radiating off him felt as deep and lost as Katie felt.

It made no sense. “But he killed himself _hours_ after he shot Jared, it wasn’t even a full Earth day.”

“Then how did he get there, looking like that, saying what he’s saying?” Jensen asked. “He sure as hell wasn’t—scruffy looking in the field.”

“By now you probably think I’m dead,” Kane continued in the projection.

“Well dude, that’s kinda obvious, seeing as how you told us if we were seeing this it meant you were dead,” Jensen complained.

“Wait, that didn’t come out right. What I mean is at the time I am making this recording, you probably believe I have already killed myself. The suicide—it didn’t happen when or where or how you think it did. It’s been three days since Alcynon. Guess that means by this point Earth is either won or lost. When I started on this path, I believed Earth was lost no matter what, and I believed General Lehne when he said the only way to save humans was to make a deal, ensure the Licinians helped us get as many people off the planet as possible. In hindsight, yeah, it sounds sick, I’m not professing sainthood here. I just figured what the hell. Markers are already playing god, why don’t we play it back.”

“So far, really not helping,” Jensen muttered under his breath.

Katie kicked at his ankle teasingly.

“I never wanted to be like you. When I touched that damn WMD, I felt like I’d had my life stolen from me, forced into some kind of monster. And for a long time I took it out on everyone else. General Lehne believes—by this point, it’s probably believed—that humans were superior and should l have more rights, but he didn’t view those us who weren’t born this way, and kept saying he wanted to find a cure for us, and he saw us as equals, would get us out. There was a time, and he said that you were the key, Jensen. I did horrible things, I used Jared’s name to trap you, and I justified it because I thought he deserved it for siding with you over us, for betraying his humanity.” The image fritzed again and through the static, they could see Kane starting to crack up. He was stamping his feet and crying. “I was such a fool.”

“You got that right,” Jensen muttered.

“No, you’re still not getting it.” 

Katie and Jensen straightened up, scowling at the projection.

“Did he just—”

“Talk to us?” Katie finished. They exchanged a nervous glance. 

“Please tell me no one’s gone and invented time travel, because if the words ‘time wimey’ come out of his mouth, I don’t think I can take it,” Jensen complained, dragging his hands over his face in distress.

“And this isn’t time travel,” Kane’s projection said.

“Gah?” Katie gasped.

“Really not helping,” Jensen whined.

“Look, I know how you think. You’re just that predictable, Ackles,” Kane’s tone went rough, almost a little hostile. “And we’re never going to get through— Shit! Fuck! I’m talking to myself.” Kane kicked at something and paced around the projection area. 

Any amusement Katie had been feeling soon faded. They were watching the last message of a man’s life, and he was scared, and hunted, and alone.

“Look, I faked my death on Alcynon and left the message about where to find General Lehne, because I had to. He needs to be stopped, and I needed to buy myself time to take care of a few things, like this. But they’ll never stop tracking me, and I can’t let them have me. Not even my body. Dead or alive, there’s too much they can use me for.”

Katie looked over at Jensen and saw a pained flash of recognition in his eyes. The memory of what General Lehne’s faction had done to Jensen in their quest to understand and _use_ Naiians as tools was still fresh in both their minds.

“Jensen, I’m sorry about kidnapping you, what the researchers were doing is just the tip of the iceberg. General Lehne, is just the tip of the iceberg. He’s practically a nobody. There’s someone much bigger out there pulling his strings, directing him like a puppet, and they don’t give a shit whether you—we—started out human or not. I—found a list, two lists actually. I wasn’t supposed to see them. General Lehne had me hack into the ORDA black site server looking for records about the Alcynon mission. We were hoping to intercept and remove the components for the jamming system prior before you could implement it to prevent the invasion. When I was looking for the records I stumbled upon something else.” In the projection Kane paused and ran his hands through his hair again looking very shaken. “The—the first list ranks Markers regardless of origin by level of ‘utility ‘ Ackles, you’re first, Collins is second, and I—I’m third. There were plans, notes from when you were kidnapped. They planned to do the same to me, to Jared, to a whole bunch of people who started out human. No matter what they said, they didn’t care. The second list was for something called Project Prometheus. There are several phases, and I haven’t had time to sort out the connection among people in each phase, but every, or almost every, Marker in ORDA is on that list. Some of the phases seem to be split along lines of who used to be human, but not all. There are notes about containment and testing... and named candidates for something called ‘source material,’ everyone ranked in the top 10 on the other list is in a special group on the second list... something called reserved and sequestered.” A crash sounded on the recording and Kane glanced nervously over his shoulder. “I’ve got to go or they’re going to catch me. Jensen,” as he spoke, he moved forward, leaning, and his image seemed to grow and loom in the projection field. “—I only learned this the day before Alcynon. When Jared... I hadn’t figured out what I believed. I know you wanted the device to expand the jamming field, but you don’t understand, the people who were using Gen. Lehne plan to use it to trap us, if not on Earth l, then somewhere. They can track us now, I’m sorry I forced your hand on that, and I had no clue what I was doing. Put your head together with Dr. Cassidy and maybe you’ll figure out a way to stop this. Their plans aren’t just for us, I think they want to change humanity and erase us in the process.” 

The crashing noises got louder. 

In the projection, Kane’s eyes grew wild, “Gotta run. Gonna throw myself into a sun,” he held up a slightly bumpy egg-shaped device with lots of blinking lights on it. “If I’m lucky I’ll take some of them with me.” He turned and started to walk out of the projection field, only to come back, one finger raised towards the ceiling. “Almost forgot. All the records I acquired, they’re on a datacard stored under the casing of this holotube. Good luck with them.”

The recording blinked out, leaving them alone in the cave, bathed in the blue glow of the bioluminescent moss. 

Katie blinked and blinked again, struggling to process what they’d seen. Could it possibly be true? She stole a glance at Jensen to ask him what he thought and froze.

Jensen was shaking, his breath coming in stuttering gasps. 

Katie reached out with her mind to comfort him and hit a wall of pain. Shock, betrayal, regret, and understanding were swirling around the surface of Jensen’s mind, but Katie couldn’t sort out what any of it meant.

“Katie?” Jensen asked, breathless, he seemed to be frozen to the spot, staring at the holotube in front of them. “Did you ever see Kane’s body?” He sounded almost hopeful, but Katie couldn’t tell what answer he was hoping for.

“Um,” she thought back to those panicked days in the height of the war where everything was falling down around them. “No, I don’t think so, we got called back to Earth, there wasn’t time for me to do the autopsy,” she realized.

“Do you know who did?” Jensen asked through clenched teeth. 

Katie concentrated, jaw dropping, and shook her head. “I have no idea. I know there is an autopsy report, but I don’t remember reading it, and I didn’t notice who wrote it. We were kinda,” she shrugged, “occupied with more important things.”

“Like saving the planet and my life,” Jensen murmured, “thank you for that.”

“No problem.”

“Right,” Jensen seemed to snap from his fugue state and retrieved the holotube. “Sorry ‘bout that, Kane, I sure as hell hope you took a few of them with you.”

“What? You don’t seriously believe him?” Katie asked, incredulous. She was personally leaning towards Kane having snapped and gone delusional with guilt. “You can’t open a wormhole into a sun and walk through!”

“You sure about that?” Jensen asked, rhetorically. “Did you see what he was holding?”

“Looked kind of like an Earth-made WMD. But not really like any I’d ever seen before.”

“That’s because it was. One of the early ones, before they had failsafes.” Jensen shuddered and looked up at Katie. “It’s one of the ones that accidentally killed—humans—before they figured it out. Tony showed me.”

“O—oh,” Katie gasped, as the weight of realization hit her. First generation WMDs were the boogiemen of every human in ORDA, she’d lived years with the lurking fear the devices might still exist. That ORDA might decide to dispose of her by chucking her off the planet into a barren wasteland... or the center of a star. And then the Licinians had gone and done just that. Taken unsuspecting, innocent humans and hurled them into space, and her fear of the devices hadn’t exactly subsided when she’d become a Naiian. And now she’d seen one. Kane had found one, found it, and used it. They hadn’t all been upgraded or destroyed like ORDA had promised. Still, shocking as that was, there was a flaw in the story. “Jensen,” she whispered, hands clutching her elbows as she wrapped her arms around herself, “it can’t be true. Kane is—was a Naiian. He could open the wormhole, but the biological failsafe would kick in. The moment he tried to step in, the wormhole would snap shut— Why are you shaking your head at me?”

“That’s a story ORDA told us.”

“Jensen, you fucking well know it’s true. You’ve _felt_ the failsafe kick in. It’s a standard part of training. You taught me—ORDA made me go through a compressed course when they found out.” That had been before they’d started cracking down on wormhole travel, of course.

Rather than agreement and understanding, Jensen’s face was animated with defiance and vindication. “That’s right. ORDA taught us. How many other things did ORDA say were true, were immutable rules, and it turned out they weren’t? How many times did people just stop looking or testing? How many times has ORDA told us the universe operates a certain way to ensure we comply and act the way they want?”

“Did Tony tell you the failsafe could be defeated?” Katie asked skeptically.

“Not explicitly, no, but he confirmed that a lot of what ORDA says they ‘know,’ they really don’t.” Jensen let out a long, shaking sigh, bracing himself. “Think about it. The failsafe is a survival mechanism. It prevents people from opening a wormhole to empty space and chucking us through. It protects us, Naiian and symbiote alike, from dangers posed by other people’s wormholes, only with the first gen WMDs, it reads our own wormholes as if they were someone else’s because we don’t recognize the WMD as being _ours_. But it’s not an external force or an arbitrary rule of the universe. It’s there to protect us from elements beyond our control. If you really wanted to die? If you had a really good reason? If you made a choice? Would it be able to stop you? Would you be able to stop yourself?”

When Katie thought about it like that, she shook her head and whispered, “No.”

“That’s all it is, not magic, not a physical law, a defense mechanism. With conscious control, you can overcome it.”

Katie swallowed around the lump that sprang up in her head. “So you think Kane burned himself up inside a sun?” 

Jensen nodded, “And if we’re lucky, he took a few of them with him.”

“But—” The possibilities spiraled through Katie’s mind as she tracked each to its logical end. “What if they caught him before he could? What if that WMD is in their hands now?”

“Then we’re a little more screwed than we would have been. Doesn’t change anything. We still need to take a look at the lists and figure out what it means. Who are _they_ and what can we do to stop them?”

“ORDA could always make more WMDs in the first generation design,” Katie realized. When Jensen didn’t reply, she looked up and found him standing still, eyes closed, he looked like he was reaching out...

“I don’t think they got Kane. I think he died exactly the way he told us.”

“What makes you say that?” Katie asked.

“Because I don’t feel him anywhere.” Jensen’s eyes blinked open. “No matter how far I reach.”

“You’re, uh, feeling the psychic field,” she realized, smiling despite the somber mood.

“Yeah,” Jensen admitted, with a chuckle of his own. “If you want to call it that.”

“Words aren’t so important when you can communicate in ideas,” she murmured.

Jensen cocked his head at her.

“I think that’s what Tony was trying to tell you.”

“Ah,” Jensen nodded. “I still like words. They give us power relative to everyone else.”

“Come on,” Katie urged. “We’ve got to get out of here.” She tugged on Jensen’s arm.

“Can’t leave evidence,” Jensen protested. He felt around the surface of the holotube until a hidden compartment released with a hiss, revealing a tiny solid state datacard inside. The kind ORDA favored because they could be easily adapted to communicate with most computer systems their allies used. Jensen plucked the card from the cylinder. “Clever,” he said looking more closely.

“What is it?” Katie asked.

Jensen showed her. Inside the skin of the holotube, was a tiny explosive. “He gave it a self-destruct?”

Jensen nodded. “Presumably wired to my DNA signature. I don’t think it would have played for anyone else.”

They both shuddered thinking about the chance Kane had taken. 

“Time to go,” Katie said after a moment.

Jensen flipped the datacard compartment closed, set the cylinder back where they’d found it, and followed Katie out of the cave. 

When they were both out in the open, Katie heard a muffled pop and hiss that signaled the cylinder’s destruction. Distracted by the sound, she didn’t see where Jensen hid the cylinder, nor did she hear the approaching footsteps. In hindsight, she would wonder if she had if she could have changed anything. Funny thing about the end of the world—you never did see it coming, even when you were expecting it.

_Chapter 7_

_Two weeks later…_

Katie stepped out into the hall and let the door close behind her with an audible click. The sound made her think of locked doors, chains, coffins, finality… the point of no return. She’d been optimistic at first, hoped this was just a hiccup, an experiment.

The Earth was almost destroyed, people started popping up all over the planet in wormholes, and humans learned the same species trying to destroy the planet was the species that had visited Earth long ago leaving relics and gene-altering nanolumes behind to create Markers. People were scared. Katie could understand that; hell, she’d _been_ scared, at least a little before she’d become a Marker— _when she was still human_ —so she could understand their fear, how unsettling it was.

But this wasn’t blowing over. The new influx of people involved in ORDA, the governments that now knew or had taken a renewed interest in interplanetary affairs after a century and a half of ignoring them, they weren’t backing down or coming to their senses. They weren’t seeing reason. They were taking over, slowly but surely, every day, they grabbed a little more power, and the people who’d been in ORDA—Marker and Human alike—on the front lines and in the labs working, sacrificing, every day for years were being pushed aside. 

Worse, those few, the minority had figured out they could avoid scorn and find favor by sharing their bigoted views with the newcomers. In turn, they were elevated to positions of power, given more control, more say. 

Day by day, ORDA was becoming more… _human_ , the worst of humanity shining through. Markers were becoming nothing but slaves, cattle, and now they were being left to die.

She wiped tears from her eyes as she shuffled back to her quarters. They were letting her care for Jensen, but other than that, she didn’t have any official duties anymore.

The day they’d found Kane’s message, a young lieutenant had cornered them outside the cave. They’d been summoned back to Earth. For once they were allowed to travel by wormhole, but they’d been forbidden from using their own WMDs because of their “alien origin.” 

The lieutenant had led them directly to a briefing room in the hospital wing of ORDA HQ in Seattle where every other Naiian with an alien-made wormhole device was gathered. A Major General none of them had ever seen before had ordered them to relinquish their WMDs, and when they did not, the devices were taken by force.

Jensen had earned a rifle butt to the chest for his efforts. 

They’d watched as one-by-one their WMDs were placed in strange silver boxes. The boxes were closed, sealed, and placed in medical storage under 24-hour guard.

Katie had started to notice it right away, a sense of loss the moment the box was closed, a tearing sensation in her chest, a feeling of constantly reaching for something. She should have known it wasn’t psychosomatic. 

As it turned out, the WMDs of Licinian origin weren’t simple machines… they were symbiotes, and without them, the Naiians were dying.

~~~

Misha was finally home. But the moment he’d arrived he could tell something was horribly wrong. There was so much pain… The other Markers on base were in agony.

Two minutes later when they’d confiscated his WMD, he’d understood why.

Then he’d been taken to his husband’s hospital room, where he’d found Jensen delirious and hooked up to a ventilator. Jensen was _dying_ and ORDA wouldn’t lift a finger to help him!

“Colonel, will you come with me?” Katie asked already striding past Misha and out the door.

Flustered, Misha, stutter-stepped as he tried to figure out what was going on. Too much information was jockeying for prime real estate in his mind. Convinced he wouldn’t make sense of any of it—let alone Katie’s strange behavior—without finding out what she wanted, he waved at Harris and followed Katie out the door. “I’ll just—” he waved and nodded at Harris, who nodded back and waved him on. “–be right back,” he muttered as the door swung shut behind him. At least Harris and everyone else in the room had seemed just as flabbergasted by Katie’s behavior as he had.

Katie had set a quick pace, and with her long legs, Misha had to actually jog to catch up. He had a feeling it was exactly the sort of behavior he _didn’t_ want to engage in right now. Jogging, fast movement, excitement, or conflict of any kind always caught ORDA security’s attention—whether it was the physical security officers and intelligence analysts watching camera feeds and biosensor readouts as they happened or the threat matrix algorithms tagging the behavior for later review, they _always_ noticed, usually sooner rather than later. And Misha was certain they—Jensen—couldn’t afford either. So Misha slowed after the third jogged step, and looked around for something in the vicinity that could legitimately attract his attention (and inspire alacrity) without bringing down the full power of Big Brother. 

Spying a computer terminal on the right side of the hall about ten meters away—one of the stripped down models that offered a basic interface with top-level functions of the base database, the sort officers could use to make basic log entries and requests if they didn’t have a tablet handy—he speed walked over to it and punched in his access code. While he went through the thumbprint, retinal scan, and DNA sampling, he brainstormed what possible excuse he could have for using this terminal, and resisted the urge to drum his fingers on the keyboard in impatience. When the _**Access Granted**_ message popped up overlaying the root directory, he latched onto the first module that caught his eye: _Medical_. It actually made sense. His team—minus Dr. Cassidy—had just returned from a prolonged mission only for half the team to have their WMDs confiscated when they returned. Add to that a hurried briefing cum counseling session with Dr. Cassidy in which he learned his husband had succumbed to a serious, potentially fatal, illness following the confiscation of his WMD, and he had ample grounds to make the request.

His hands flew over the controls alternating between typed passwords and touch-screen selected commands. He even managed without stumbling to yank his dog tags out from under his shirt for the sensor field to pick them up—otherwise the network would lock him out and cut off access. One week stand down accompanied by full medical evals, fitness tests, and a follow-up screening prior to redeployment on the next mission. That should buy him time—buy them _all_ a little time, and it was completely justified given the situation. Misha knew some of the brass—especially the new factions jockeying for control—would balk at what they would term an overabundance of caution, but Misha could honestly say even if Jensen _wasn’t_ his husband; even if he honestly believed Jensen’s condition was a fluke and completely unrelated to separation from his WMD; even if Misha didn’t believe the move to separate them was made out of xenophobic, genocidal hatred that marked the tip of a much larger, more nefarious iceberg, he would still make the same call. The interplanetary situation was relatively stable at the moment, and there was no reason to rush troops back into the field until they were reasonably confident Jensen’s condition was an isolated occurrence and not the sign of a much larger side effect. That was what he’d tell the Generals when they questioned him, anyway.

All the while, he monitored Katie’s progress out of the corner of his eye. 

She turned down a dark hallway and out of sight before he could finish the transaction, but he bit his tongue and tamped down on the urge to run after her. Misha punched “send” to transmit the last batch of requests; fired off a lightning-quick memo to Brigadier General Peleggi explaining his rationale; and went through the painstakingly complicated process of logging off and securing the terminal. Who knew if Peleggi would ever see his memo? The new general was as mysteriously missing as his boss. _There_ , he thought with a sigh as the process completed. At least he didn’t have his tablet on him at the moment or the whole affair would have been even more suspicious. Worry tugged at him that Katie had gone out of his sight. What did she want? What if she thought he wasn’t following her? But he pushed the thoughts aside. This was _Dr. Cassidy_ after all. She never did anything—no matter how crazy or rash, without a really good reason, and she never took any unnecessary risks. Besides she always had Jensen’s best interests at heart and considering the scene they’d just left, odds were her abrupt request pertained to Jensen and his condition.

Before Misha’s mind could run off, cataloguing all the what-ifs and varieties of impending doom that might be in store for him to find out in a conversation with Katie, he focused on how to find her, or rather where she would go. Given the circumstances—and her location when he’d lost sight of her—there was only one answer. Exercising the utmost in self-restraint, Misha set off at a fast walk and took the long way around. He tried not to notice how _undone_ he felt without his WMD strapped to his hip, or how his hand kept twitching towards the empty holster.

Three minutes later, he shoved open the door to the men’s room just inside the entrance to the medical wing. He was so tense with frustration, the door actually bounced off the doorstop with a dull thud and vibrated on its hinges. 

Katie looked up at him and glared, “CAUTION: Wet Floor” sign gripped in her hands. “Took you long enough,” she grunted stepping around Misha to set the sign outside and ensure the door closed securely behind it.

“What, the _fuck_ , Cassidy?” he said, too many years of serving as her CO overriding any hint of familiarity. “Is this _safe_ coming in here with what’s going on? If you want to talk to me about something, there’s got to be a better pla—”

“Colonel,” she said, her voice matching the formality of his own, “trust me when I say there is _no_ place on this planet or any other that it’s safe to talk about this.” She slapped her hands against her thighs as she turned, squeezing them into fists as she paced to the far end of the long narrow room stopping only to turn again and prop her hip against the farthest sink. “Doesn’t mean we can avoid talking about it though.”

“Okay,” Misha said, giving in without even a show of resistance. There was no time, and he didn’t have the energy—or concentration—to pull it off. Katie probably knew the risks better than him, especially given his recent prolonged absence from Earth. “How bad is it?”

“It’s not just Jensen; it’s all of us.” She wasn’t meeting Misha’s eye, but seemed absolutely fascinated by her shoes—she was wearing blue surgery clogs, not combat boots—or possibly the pock-marked concrete floor. 

“I kinda figured that much.” Misha slumped against the second sink from the door and made a concerted effort to unclench his fists. He tried not to notice how much his hands were shaking. The tremors had been getting steadily worse ever since they put his WMD in the secure container and took it away. Seeing Jensen hadn’t helped, and he was pretty sure at least some of what he was feeling was a mix of a psychosomatic response to seeing Jensen and adrenaline. 

“You’re already feeling it, huh?” Katie asked with a nervous snort.

“Yeah,” Misha admitted, “and it’s getting worse.”

“ _Fuck_.” Katie shook her head in her hands and seemed to slump even more.

“You—you didn’t?” He struggled to put his surprise into words. Surely, Katie had known he would be affected?

“No, I knew.” Katie broke off into a fit of nervous laughter. Steadying herself with a deep breath, she continued. “You’ve just verified my theory.” The way she said it, that verification was the worst thing in the world.

“And that means…” Misha prompted, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

“We’re—fucked.” She jerked upright as she spoke, her left hand fluttering up in the air in front of her face. Shoving herself off the sink, she began pacing back and forth between the sink and the stall. Now that he looked more closely, Misha could see tremors in her hands and arms. It wasn’t anywhere near as what Jensen was experiencing, but it didn’t bode well. 

Always prone to pragmatism and practicality, Katie didn’t disappoint. After a minute or so of frenetic activity, she returned to her slump against the sink, this time leaning against it sideways so she was facing Misha. “The condition is fatal.”

Misha jerked as if physically struck. He _knew_ , somehow he could feel it—that place deep inside him that he always thought of as the core of his telepathy that allowed him to reach out and open wormholes, bend space, and link with other minds; it was searching, reaching out for the other part of him that it suddenly couldn’t find, and with every passing second he could feel his control slipping away as the hole left in its wake grew bigger and bigger. In time, it would consume him leaving nothing behind. He couldn’t _live_ disconnected. He wasn’t meant to. _We’re not designed to function this way._ In that split second, he wondered if the Licinian rebels who had engineered the genetic building blocks that when merged with human DNA evolved into Markers had intended this—dependence?—or if it was an unforeseen consequence. Maybe they hadn’t expected their creations to use the WMDs they’d left behind or to use them as _much_. “There’s gotta be something—” He shook his head in disbelief. Katie was a miracle worker. She always had another card up her sleeve.

“Sure, if I can analyze and reproduce every biochemical response generated by each individual’s specific WMD and then supply each of us with that customized feedback, then we’ll all be fine. But somehow I don’t think the powers that be are going to take too kindly to any effort to duplicate the effects of the ‘contraband alien artifacts’ they just confiscated,” she said, complete with air quotes.

“They knew this would happen? Is this why—”

“They may have known; or they might have merely _suspected_. Either way, they want to disable us first, and if they wind up killing us in the process—” She shrugged. “They don’t care.”

“How—how is this even possible?” Disbelief warred with his own common sense—he’d seen this coming. They’d known how bad it was—or they should have; it was just so hard to let go of the old truths. Being a Marker was supposed to be the closest thing to having a get-out-of-jail free card as there was in ORDA’s play book. But everything had changed and with it, so had the priorities. The hunters became the hunted; the favored children became the slaves.

“I’m going to assume that’s a rhetorical question,” Katie snarked back, sniffling. 

Misha hadn’t realized she was crying, but he could see it now, the cracks in her calm, professional exterior. A _month_ she and Jensen had been alone, watching the world they knew fall apart unable to share what was happening with Misha or anyone outside their increasingly isolated corner of the world. The base had become a prison. They’d gone from officers to prisoners without a court martial ever being convened. And as the time went on, their captors had become more bold, until Jensen was effectively taken out of the picture, leaving Katie alone to deal—processing intel, maintaining the façade of being a loyal soldier, researching, hiding the research, trying to keep Jensen alive—she’d done it all alone not knowing if they could hold out long enough for backup to arrive.

“I’m sorry. We should have been here—”

“Jensen and I should have run at the first _inkling_ they were going to put their stupid plan into place.” Her voice was filled with anger and regret, overlaid with a degree of self-loathing that surprised even Misha. “They surprised us,” she said, calmer. “We probably could have acted anyway, but they caught us wrong-footed… and neither of us imagined it would be this bad.” She clenched her shaking hands, flexing the fingers several times as if wrestling for control and trying to work the kinks out. “Misha, even if I had the full support of ORDA and every ally we have out there, a fully stocked lab—on M’Nell—with a staff of 100, I’m not sure I could duplicate the biofeedback. Not in a human _lifetime_ , and certainly not in the timeframe we’re looking at.” 

A burst of realization hit Misha—it wasn’t gentle or subtle or fluid like telepathic communication between Markers usually was, and he realized Katie was suffering far worse effects than he had been able to observe. He fought it, because it was impossible, ridiculous… “What are you saying?” he stammered instead.

“I can map a Marker’s responses to the deprivation. I can track what our bodies do—I can look at the chemical changes, the imbalances, even isolate which genes are responding—even with everyone being a little different, I’ve been able to map out who is likely to respond in what way and how quickly their condition will deteriorate. But in terms of _duplicating_ the response,” she shook her head. “We’ve been actively analyzing the Licinian WMDs for 250 years, and we didn’t even have a _clue_ this was part of them. We didn’t understand what _T. beta_ did until a year ago, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. I can hypothesize, but it could be the biochemical output of the WMD, it could be electrical signals, it could be something purely mechanical, or it could be a quasi-sentient telepathic response—figuring it out could take _years_ , and then we’d still have the problem of actually _replicating_ that.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest, and her eyes seemed to probe impossibly into Misha. She was looking for recognition, acknowledgement, and he didn’t want to give it.

He didn’t want to acknowledge the picture the pieces of the puzzle painted in his mind. 

“Even with the combined medical knowledge of all our allies we still can’t manufacture artificial organs that can function and sustain life in the long term and we’re not even close when it comes to truly sentient artificial intelligence.”

“It’s an organ,” Misha admitted finally. “Our WMDs, the _original_ ones, once we link with them or bond with them, they start to function like an organ located outside our bodies. A kind of—”

“Symbiosis,” Katie finished.

“I’m sorry I missed the trill jokes,” he said with a bitter sigh, fighting back the prickle in his eyes. “I’m sure Jensen must have _loved_ that analogy, even if it meant his bosses had just signed his death warrant.”

“He called it an ‘ass-backwards silver lining,’” Katie admitted. A smile ghosted across her face, quickly getting lost in the play of conflicting emotions. She dabbed at the corners of her eyes looking equal parts frustrated and sad and she seemed lost in labyrinthine thoughts, by the moment sliding deeper and deeper into her own head.

“So…” Misha clapped his hands for emphasis, flinching when the noise produced was much louder than he had intended. “What do you know, and what _can_ you tell me?” Misha prodded.

Either the words or the clap—maybe both—had the intended effect, and Katie snapped out of her daze. The change was so immediate Misha would have believed he’d imagined Katie’s introspective stupor if not for the split-second rubber-band jerk her body gave. When she focused on Misha again, her demeanor was all business. That ability to turn on a dime, keeping her wits about her (or recovering and composing herself in a split second), and function at high productivity, no matter the situation was one of the reasons Misha was forever grateful Katie was on their side. It made her a valuable field asset, an excellent combat medic, a brilliant strategist, and damn near impossible to defeat. He never wanted to be _her_ enemy.

“Symbiote deprivation or symbiote withdrawal—those are the most accurate terms for the condition. It occurs only in those Markers—” she flinched at the name, pausing to mutter “we have gotta stop calling ourselves that,” before continuing, “—who use Licinian-made WMDs. After some period of time—I don’t have the opportunity to test for how long it takes, and given the consequences, any such test would be ethically questionable at best—a symbiotic relationship forms between the Marker and the WMD.

"Again, I—I’m assuming it’s symbiotic, because it’s not like I can really test it right now. The WMDs definitely convey a whole lot of benefits on us, so they’re definitely not parasitic. It could be a complex chemical dependency, which would be great since that’s something we could theoretically solve… But you know as well as I do we can feel the WMD _responding_ to us. We search for them, they call to us—and they feel _different_ from the Earth-made variety. They aren’t just a piece of machinery programmed to interact with our hormones. If we had a better understanding of the WMDs and how they originate in Licinian society we might know what the WMDs get from us.” She shrugged. “But that’s kind of beside the point.

“If a Marker who has bonded with a symbiote is subsequently separated from it by a great enough distance or _other_ interference, the Marker’s body begins to go through a rapid series of chemical changes.” She blinked and suddenly she was _Katie_ Jensen’s—and Misha’s—friend, and not _Dr. Cassidy_. “When they took our W—our symbiotes, they put them in a container with some kind of special shielding I’ve never seen before. It—when they closed it the disconnection was immediate. They _knew_ Misha. Either they know more about our bodies than we do, or _someone_ is feeding them information.”

“You think they’re working with the Licinians.” The words tasted bitter in Misha’s mouth.

Katie’s head bobbed up and down in agreement. “We know they were talking to a particular _faction_ , and well, yes. We’re certain of it. Jensen and I—that’s a story for another time.” She sighed. “I don’t know if the humans that took over this place realized what would happen, if they intended it, if they were just _curious_ … It’s possible they were operating off intel Gen. Lehne gathered when he kidnapped Jensen.”

_Oh_ , Misha realized, his eyes popping wide as saucers. “Jen could feel where they were keeping his W—symbiote. He felt it _calling_ to him.” And that’s what it was, that feeling Jensen had described the desperation, panic, uneasiness, the tearing _tug_ from within he had conveyed to Misha telepathically. Now that he could contrast that feeling with the emptiness he was now feeling he knew what it was. Misha’s soul was calling out, but there was no answer, just a painful echo in reply like standing over an impossibly deep, empty well. When Jensen had been taken, the connection had been _strained_ , stretched to its limit, but it was still there. All he needed was to get free long enough to find it.

“The thing is, even if the new Brass was just trying to stop us from _finding_ the symbiotes, they had to have help in shielding them,” Katie pointed out, her tone bitter. “And whatever the motivation, the result is the same.” She leaned back against the sink again, bracing herself with her hands behind her, and hopping up onto it so she was perched on the edge, her legs dangling over the edge, feet swinging back and forth. Katie started talking again, using her hands to illustrate the concepts, her carriage somewhere between professional _doctor_ mode and casual friend. 

“When the connection with a symbiote is strained, our bodies respond by increasing the production of a half-dozen neurotransmitters, including _translatoneuroloquoramine alpha_ and _beta_ and procogitol. If the connection is still intact and our bodies receive a response from the symbiote, the increased production helps us to locate our symbiotes, provides focus on finding them, improves our telepathy so we can communicate with the symbiote and others over a longer range.” She paused and sighed. “If there’s no response, neurotransmitter production keeps increasing—it’s like our bodies are searching, and when they don’t receive a response, they can’t stop. Our bodies produce more and more of the neurotransmitters—after a certain point they flood our system. It’s more than we can handle.”

“What exactly—” Misha started not sure he really wanted to know, but needing to nonetheless.

“The transmitters flood our nervous system. This causes problems in a number of ways. First, it serves to sort of hijack our bodies so all our attention is focused on establishing a link with the missing symbiote. Everything else takes a back seat—you’ll notice you probably already have to concentrate to focus on mental tasks that should be simple. You’re not picking up telepathic information that you would normally collect passively. You have to focus to pick it up, and things you should have to work to block out you either can’t block or aren’t receiving at all. As the withdrawal progresses it the cognitive effects become more severe—you have to make a conscious effort to hold a thought, telepathy with other Markers becomes increasingly difficult. 

“Then there are all the other neurological effects—the longer we go without our symbiotes the more extreme the chemical imbalance. This leads to mood swings, sleep disturbances, severe headaches, and disruption of motor function. Next come seizures, and then the imbalance starts to suppress the central nervous system—respiration seems to be the first function to fail.” 

“That’s what’s happening to Jensen,” Misha admitted.

“Yes.” Katie’s voice was small. 

“That’s what’s going to happen to all of us?” It was more statement than question.

Katie’s nod was abrupt. “From the somewhat limited empirical data I’ve been able to gather, it will happen a lot sooner for some of us than others. If someone has just the basics of Marker genetics, the process seems to be pretty slow. Anders, Lee, Simmons—they lost their symbiotes the same time Jensen and I did and they’re just starting to have noticeable symptoms. Headaches, difficulty screening empathic data, fatigue. Nothing too alarming. So, if our new overlords have less-than-malevolent intent—”

“They don’t necessarily know they’re killing us,” Misha finished.

“Jensen looks like a fluke, and if they’ve noticed anyone else’s symptoms, the severity isn’t immediately apparent,” Katie confirmed. “For those of us with more bells and whistles, symptom onset seems linked to a combination of _skill_ and _ability_ with time to onset inversely proportionate to the individual’s combined skill and ability.”

Though the connection was far more strained and fragmented than normal, Katie made the effort to share her understanding with him. Receiving the information and sorting through it caused Misha physical pain, but after a few moments’ struggle and a lancing pain that had him clamping his eyes shut and clutching ineffectually at his forehead, he began to see the picture. Someone with a few “extra” abilities, like advanced translation abilities or longer than normal range telepathy, but with low or ordinary skill in _using_ their abilities progressed at roughly the same rate as someone with basic marker abilities but more advanced skill in using their abilities—the kind of people who could say dial wormholes with ease and minimal concentration or easily filter surface emotions of those around them. The more advanced the skills and abilities the faster the disease onset and progressed, with those individuals having both lots of extra abilities and exceptional skill in using them suffering the fastest and worst. Over time, the symptoms got worse, with new problems cropping up at a faster and faster rate.

“Speed of onset and progression and the _severity_ of the initial reaction are worse in those with Marker-typical allergies and sensitivities. So, for someone with, say, a penicillin allergy—” she looked meaningfully at Misha, “or benzodiazepines,” she jabbed a finger at herself, “symptoms onset earlier than for others with the same approximate level of skill and abilities. And we get neurological tremors, muscle spasms, and more intense cognitive and telepathic effects right from the get go.”

“They took your W—symbiotes two weeks ago?” Misha asked incredulously. “If I feel like this _already_ ,” he held up a trembling hand for effect, “how are you still functioning?”

“I’m not—not really. I… I had a seizure this morning. I’ve been having dizzy spells for days. I’ve been self-medicating, treating the symptoms as much as I can—I’ve been popping Vicodin like candy and taking Marker-approved anticonvulsants—and with my sensitivities, it’s kind of hard to find something that won’t kill me or completely knock me out while still working. The tremors are getting harder to hide, and…” She looked away suddenly, her face flushing with shame or embarrassment.

Misha’s stomach gave a sickening lurch when he realized he couldn’t tell _what_ Katie was feeling, what had prompted her change of demeanor. “Katie, what—”

“I’ve been taking low doses of prohipnone and loquipex.”

The blood drained from Misha’s face, and the room swam before him. He clutched at the sink for support when it felt like the floor was rushing up to meet him. Prohipnone and loquipex were two rarely used—and dreaded—psychoactive drugs. Both acted to suppress and limit the production of Marker-specific neurotransmitters. Prohipnone targeted procogitol and a few related transmitters, while loquipex worked on the translatoneuroloquoramines. Markers hated them because they seriously fucked with your ability to understand nonnative languages, open wormholes, or—interact with a WMD in any capacity. And that was _before_ most Markers had begun exploring their telepathic abilities in earnest. They left the user feeling disoriented, unbalanced, and _slow_ , and were typically reserved for the harshest of situations—complex traumatic brain injuries, psychosis, forms of senility that included loss of control over telepathic functions, and—occasionally—severe illnesses that affected the brain or central nervous system directly or caused life-threatening fevers. Misha had been on the drugs twice—during his recovery from the TYngai attack, when infection had sent his fever spiking to almost 107 Fahrenheit, and again following the Licinian incursion for the same reason. He barely remembered either occasion, except that he felt like disoriented shit for weeks afterwards. For Katie to do that _willingly_ to herself—

“It’s about as bad as it sounds, but without them, my condition would be much closer to Jensen’s. At the very least, I would be in excruciating pain, confused, with significant tremors,” Katie confided. “I’ve got to stay clear-headed for as long as I can, but—”

“The drugs are wearing off—you’re developing a resistance?” Misha asked, getting the gist of what Katie was implying.

She nodded again. “The dose I’m taking now would have completely shut down my body’s production of the affected neurotransmitters two weeks ago, and now, it barely takes the edge off. My levels keep rising, the tremors and spasms are getting worse, and I’m starting to get side effects from the drugs.”

Which, Misha painfully recalled, included blurred vision, nausea, high blood pressure, and difficulty with temperature regulation. 

“If I keep up much longer, they’re going to be ineffective.” Katie sighed. “Look, this is really only part of what I called you out to talk about. Sick fact is, I’ve got good and bad news on top of this, and we need to talk about it _now_ before someone comes looking.”

Bracing himself, Misha shrugged. “Good news first.”

“Symbiote withdrawal only affects those who have bonded with a Licinian-made WMD. Our reverse-engineered WMDs don’t create a symbiote bond. Even though they undoubtedly confiscated Padalecki and Abel’s WMD’s they’ll be okay. I never thought I’d be so glad so many of us were using modified Earth-made WMDs, but I sure as hell am.” Katie paused to let the information sink in, one eyebrow cocked expectantly.

“But the flip side is if they _do_ decide to give us Earth-made WMDs, they won’t help,” Misha responded, filling in the blanks.

“They provisionally issued me one last week even though they don’t ‘anticipate sending me into the field until the current crisis has passed.’” Katie shuddered, and Misha could feel her despair. At this point, Jensen would have to die for the crisis to “pass” and even if that happened, there would just be more sick Markers—Katie included, dying behind him. 

“You don’t have it on you,” Misha observed, waving a hand at the empty pouch on Katie’s belt.

“Ah, yes, turns out the copies just make it _worse_ —I carried it for a full day before I realized I was getting just enough feedback from it to trick my body into thinking it _could_ connect with the WMD if only I just tried harder. My procogitol levels spiked. I stuffed it in my duty locker, and I’ve tried to stay the hell away from there since, but the bump my levels took didn’t go back down. That’s when I had to start with the drugs.” Katie pinched the bridge of her nose. “I wish that was the bad news, but it’s not.”

Misha filed her comment away, following up with a pressing question of his own. “Do you know if _any_ Licinian-made WMD will work, or does it have to be the one we bonded with?”

“I’m not sure,” Katie shook her head. “I know it’s got to be a one-to-one relationship—we can’t just get _one_ WMD and all bond to it,” she let out a little sarcastic laugh, “but I don’t know enough about the bonding process itself to even make an educated guess about whether we can _re-bond_ with a new WMD.”

“If we were able to reestablish a bond with our own symbiotes?” 

Palms turned up, Katie gave an exaggerated shrug. “Who the hell knows.” She slapped her thighs. “Based on Jensen’s experience with having his symbiote bond _strained_ , I’m guessing as soon as we reconnect our biochemistry rapidly normalizes… But that’s assuming our vital organs haven’t sustained permanent damage already.”

That meant they’d have to make a play for their existing WMDs and _soon_. They didn’t have enough time to experiment with locating new Licinian WMDs and they certainly wouldn’t survive if they were caught or apprehended first. Determining where ORDA was keeping their WMDs, no _symbiotes_ would be difficult, and recovering them likely near impossible, but it was their best bet. The only one that might work. ORDA had played them well—making its move while half of the highest ranking Markers were offworld, isolating and manipulating those on Earth, so they would have trouble resisting or finding out how their comrades were fairing. It was ingenious—diabolical too, but ingenious nonetheless. 

Misha tried not to analyze his characterization of the government to which he had sworn his life and loyalty as a monolithic sentient force separate from any of the individuals who composed its governing body. Nor did he really want to acknowledge that he’d just decided to revolt, defect, rebel, flee. This crisis had come this far because Katie and Jensen had wanted to try to work it out, salvage the situation, and keep their lives. But time had run out, and now life as they’d known it was over… again. At least this time they had the illusion of a choice and some forewarning. It was more than any of them had the first time around. Even Katie, who had _chosen_ to become a Marker, had only done so after ORDA had stolen her life and taken complete control of her future.

“So, what _is_ the bad news?” Misha coaxed. He couldn’t exactly afford to go off half-cocked with the lives of every Marker known to ORDA at stake.

“You know how I said those of us with Marker-typical allergies are affected more quickly and get sicker faster?” Katie asked rhetorically. “Well, the more allergies you have, the worse it is, and it seems to hit those of us with posiphase allergies even harder.”

“Jensen—” Misha swallowed around the lump that sprang up in his throat. “Jensen has seven Marker-typical allergies, and he’s allergic to posiphase… Jesus.” His voice cracked as the tremendous rush of fear and love crashed through him. He had to do something. But what, how?

“And Hodge is still offworld under a comm blackout. If we could warn him, he might be okay.” Katie’s voice was barely louder than a whisper.

“But we don’t know what planet he’s on, and the only WMD we have is the one they gave you.” The throbbing in Misha’s head had reached a crescendo. Spots danced in front of his eyes with every heartbeat. Combined with his tears, the room around him seemed to have melted into a kind of surrealist painting.

“Using it would just make us die faster, and with their tracking network, we’d never get a second chance. If we found him, we’d just lead them right to him, never mind compromising his mission, which would either a, get him killed; b, be morally reprehensible, or c, get us labeled as interplanetary terrorists.” She ticked the options off on her fingers. “If we’re going to get word to Aldis, it has to be another way.” The disappointment and frustration was evident in Katie’s pained voice and pinched expression. “If we don’t find a way though, he’ll deteriorate very quickly as soon as he gets back to Earth—”

“What if he doesn’t go to Earth first?” Misha asked, a new concern gripping him. “I mean if he goes to M’Nell or an outright Earth controlled planet before coming here, would they still take his symbiote?”

“I don’t know,” Katie admitted. “We’ve been almost entirely cut off from interplanetary news. My hope is, if it comes to that, they might wait to get him back to Earth—less chance of assistance from our allies should he object and they may not have the special containment units set up on other planets yet.” Katie frowned. “There’s one _other_ piece of bad news. I—there’s no easy way to say this.”

“This has to do with Jensen,” Misha realized, “with the spasms he’s having—because it looked like the withdrawal is doing a number on his legs.” The image of Jensen’s frantic, uncontrollably shaking and twitching limbs filled his mind, making his stomach roll again. God, he could see the knots and cramps in Misha’s muscles, almost feel the nerves misfiring. Somewhere in the back of his mind he acknowledged what he was seeing was _wrong_ , unexplained and unaccounted for by the details Katie had given him. Wrong in a very bad way, but he’d been maneuvering around it, avoiding it, since he’d followed Katie out of Jensen’s room. 

“Do you remember when you were both in recovery on M’Nell after the last battle in the Licinian incursion.”

Misha nodded. Sure, he’d been drugged out of his mind at first, no thanks to the stupid infection and neuroinhibitors, but when Katie had been explaining Jensen’s condition, he’d been paying attention.

“You remember when I explained how Jensen retained so much functionality, especially motor function, despite his spinal cord injury?” Katie queried.

“Yeah, as part of our telepathy functionality our neurotransmitters can essentially reroute and bypass damaged nerves, even in the central nervous system. It works much better for motor neurons than sensory neurons, which is why Jensen can walk, run, and jump, but has sensory problems,” Misha recalled.

Katie glared at him as if he was making the process harder than it needed to be, and he flinched under her gaze. “Do you remember _how_ this is possible?”

“Yeah, his body instinctively increased production of procogitol— Oh, fuck!” Misha felt the blood drain from his face.

“Jensen’s procogitol levels were already five times higher than normal, and they’ve skyrocketed since then. Because his body has trained itself to use procogitol as a muscle messenger work-around, the muscle spasticity he’s experiencing is several orders of magnitude worse than what he would be experiencing otherwise. He has limited sensation in his lower body, but with the overall increase in neurotransmitters, his ability to feel pain has spiked too—it’s excruciating. I’ve been administering sedatives just to get him to sleep, and the nausea is becoming unmanageable. I’m running out of anti-emetics and anti-nausea meds to try, and I’m worried about his nutrition. If he can’t keep anything down even feeding him through an NG tube won’t work, and I’m loathe to try more invasive procedures given his already compromised state.

“It gets worse… Lactic acid and other byproducts are building up in his muscles and bloodstream faster than his body can process them. As the disease progresses he spasms and their byproducts get worse and his ability to filter waste products out of his bloodstream becomes increasingly impaired.”

“So, what, he’s got renal failure on top of everything?” Misha asked exasperated. “Are they not letting you give him dialysis—”

“Misha, if it was just a matter of renal failure, I wouldn’t be this concerned. Spasms like that actually _damage_ and injure the muscle. His muscle tissue is starting to necrotize in the areas most affected, namely his legs, low back, and abdomen. And to add insult to injury, I’m beginning to see signs of resistance—the neuroreceptors and coordinating proteins aren’t responding to the procogitol as rapidly. He has so much excess procogitol, it’s essentially burning out his ability to use it, much like someone might develop insulin resistance.”

“It—it’s permanent?” Misha stammered.

“At this point, maybe, maybe not. If we stopped it now, it might be reversible, and even if it’s not, it’s minimal enough, Jensen’s body could probably compensate for it both in terms of neuromuscular control and telepathy. But if it continues—” Katie gave a shaky sigh and fixated on her trembling hands. Her legs were swinging back and forth impatiently creating an image that suggested ‘scared child’ more than anxious doctor.

“What about the inhibitors? Can’t you dose Jensen with what you’re taking?” He hated the idea of Jensen being subjected to those drugs, but if it helped, if it bought them time…

“We passed that point a long time ago,” Katie answered glumly. “He’s already developed a resistance to prohipnol, loquipex, cogiphoren, and every other Marker-specific neuroinhibitor in our arsenal. Well, everything but one…”

Misha looked over at Katie, sitting hunched on the edge of the pock-marked, white porcelain sink, swinging her legs. She looked frail and tired and almost childlike—after all, Katie, for all her achievements and experience and expertise, had just turned thirty-one. _Harmless, innocent, inconsequential_ , her body language screamed. Katie had survived for years by playing the eager, dutiful, hard-working, but oh so invisible cog in a very big wheel. And sometimes even Misha forgot what she was capable of.

“No—” The single word broke from Misha’s lips on an ephemeral gasp, barely audible to his own ears. He shuddered, head to toe, guilt and disgust sliding down his throat, blanketing his skin with an impenetrable slimy filth. “That—that’s—”

“Torture?” Katie asked, pinning Misha with her gaze. “Panantipropenol _was_ developed as an interrogation drug with the aim of torturing and terrorizing telepathic species. _But—_ “ she jabbed at the air, one finger extended, “the agonizer component of the interrogation protocol was supposed to be the subject’s confusion, isolation, and disorientation resulting from the drug’s unexplained effects. Capture a telepath, lock them in a strange, isolated room on an unfamiliar planet, and secretly dose them with a drug that completely incapacitates their telepathic abilities, and you get one terrified, panicking, former telepath who can’t adequately process their sensory input, doesn’t understand what’s going on, and will quickly buy the idea that they’re totally alone cut off from their people with no hope of rescue and no hope of returning to their normal life. By all accounts, the panantipropenol itself is painless. That’s part of why it was so effective as an interrogation device. The torture was the sensory deprivation, not the drug itself—”

“Except that the drug causes sensory deprivation—” Misha growled.

“Yes. But,” Katie again jabbed at the air, “Jensen would know what was happening to him. He’d know _why_. It would be to prolong his life, and we’d be there with him. The elements of the treatment that resulted in torture would be removed from the situation.”

“Removed, from the situation? Panantipropenol is _permanent_! You’re talking about effectively blinding Jensen in order to possibly prolong—not save, not cure, his life. Oh, and let’s not forget; it wasn’t designed for Markers, so who the hell knows if or how it would work on us!” Misha shouted, cringing despite his roiling anger when he realized his voice was reverberating around the empty bathroom… and likely carrying into the hall outside. If anyone was passing within hearing distance, they were screwed. He glared at Katie harder. _Damn it! She dragged me here just to keep me from getting ‘upset.’_ The thought was disingenuous, and deep down Misha knew it wasn’t true—at least that wasn’t the _sole_ reason for their location, but acknowledging that didn’t make his anger towards Katie any less justified.

“It’s _not_ permanent,” Katie deadpanned, her voice quiet. 

“What?” Misha asked eyebrows shooting towards his forehead with confusion.

“The manual _says_ Panantipropenol causes a permanent loss of telepathic function, but that’s just a story they told us to help us sell it to our captives.” She wiped at her eyes, and Misha realized she was crying again. “I would never, ever, suggest something like this if I thought it would _torture_ Jensen. He’s my best friend. 

“I’ve read the research, studied the development logs—there’s nothing in there to suggest they even _attempted_ to study the longevity of the effects. There’s nothing in the pharmacology of the drug to suggest it would cause a permanent impairment. Depending on the size of the dose and the method of administration, it could take longer to wear off—maybe as much as a week from the initial dose assuming a Marker with average metabolism, more or less time depending on the metabolic rate of the recipient. If multiple doses were administered over time, the drug would accumulate in the body and would take a longer time for its effect to dissipate.”

“Like THC gets stored in fat cells?” Misha croaked.

“More like birth control pills—someone who takes hormonal birth control for a prolonged period of time and stops may have to wait several months before the natural menstrual cycle reasserts itself. But it will eventually wear off. Panantipropenol was supposed to be an interrogation method of last resort—we only used it on prisoners ORDA had deemed too dangerous—anyone who received it was already slated for execution or permanent imprisonment in one of the dark, dank, holes ORDA found to throw people in. No one would ever know if the effects were permanent or not, except maybe for some of the prisoners who were disappeared instead of executed outright, and by the time they would have learned about the drug’s permanence, they would have been in complete isolation. There’re also records of administering repeat doses to captives. If it was truly permanent, there would be no need to re-dose a prisoner, unless it was the repeat doses that caused the permanency. In which case, a single administration of panantipropenol wouldn’t have a permanent effect.” Katie sighed, “And as for how it would work on Markers—”

“What?” Misha asked with dread.

“During the Licinian war we revised the formula to interact specifically with the Licinian brain and their method of telepathy…” 

“Which means it will work on us too, because we have the same neurotransmitters,” Misha realized.

“Right, and remember I’m not trying to impair Jensen’s telepathy. I’m trying to block a key neurotransmitter that has currently gone berserk and is running amok in his body as we speak, threatening to _destroy_ his telepathic ability, which would, mind you likely eliminate any chance of reversing the symbiote withdrawal. If this works, it might just stall the progression of his symbiote withdrawal—at the very least he would get a reprieve from the aspects of the disease caused by the overproduction of neurotransmitters.” Katie sounded so hopeful, but also desperate. The frantic edge underscoring every word brushed away any remaining fears Misha had about how much Katie cared for Jensen’s well-being.

But it was far from a perfect solution, and the problems, the potential landmines in the suggested treatment were beginning to spring into focus. After all, this was the main reason Katie had wanted to speak with him in private, why she’d risked shutting them in the old men’s room when all of ORDA seemed to have their eyes and ears trained on the Markers in their midst. “You can’t be sure it’s not permanent, though,” Misha stated, heart clenching in his chest as he spoke. How could he make this decision? He would never forgive himself if somehow he made Jensen’s condition _worse_.

“No, there’s a chance it’s permanent,” Katie confirmed. “There’s also some chance that it’s permanent _and_ doesn’t relieve the symbiote withdrawal, and there’s a chance Jensen could be allergic…”

_Shit_ , Misha hadn’t even thought of that, and given Jensen’s allergies…

“I don’t think that’s likely—there are were no recorded incidents of Licinian allergies, and I it turns out we—well a certain faction within ORDA—did a fair amount of clandestine testing of the drug on Licinians before field deployment. This is designed to work with our brain chemistry; Jensen’s allergies are primarily to drugs developed for _humans_. He’s allergic to them because they interact badly with elements of his biology not present in humans. But the point is, this could also buy us time, and right now Jensen doesn’t have time. Unless ORDA hands over our symbiotes right now, Jensen is _fucked_. He’s got _maybe_ 48 hours before he’s got permanent, irreversible procogitol resistance, which, by the way yields the same result as panantipropenol treatment if it’s permanent. Only by that point, many of Jensen’s muscles will have _died_ , which means he’ll have extreme atrophy in the major muscle groups of his lower body that no amount of therapy will repair. He could potentially require surgery to remove necrotic tissue. But of course even if Jensen survives those symptoms, we’re looking at complete renal and respiratory failure in 72 hours. Putting him on a vent will buy us a little time—I’m going to have to do that soon anyway because he’s cyanotic and having trouble with spontaneous respiration. His condition is also putting a massive strain on his heart, and if we don’t alleviate that soon, he’ll have cardiac damage on top of everything else. And let’s not forget if his condition progresses, we’re looking at a complete collapse of his central nervous system in the next week or so. There’s no coming back, if he’s brain dead.” As Katie spoke, she grew more and more lively, gesticulating with her arms to emphasize the enormity of the situation.

“I’m not recommending this lightly. It’s _terrifying_ , but without this, Misha, Jensen is going to die before we can figure out a way to save all our lives. There are risks with the treatment, but they are far outweighed by the benefits. I’m saying this as Jensen’s doctor and his friend. I’d get you a second opinion in a heartbeat if we could risk bringing another doctor in on this, but we can’t.”

“So how do I live with myself if we treat him and it’s permanent and he dies? Or if it’s just permanent?” Misha asked incredulously.

“Remember that he would have died without treatment and at best would have survived with severely impaired telepathy if he hadn’t. Your worst-case scenarios are more or less the same, only this way you took action. You fought to give him time. And if it’s just a case of permanent impairment—well, if Jensen’s alive we still have time to research how to counteract its effects.” Katie gave Misha a somber smile.

“But he’d be—cut off, no telepathy, no wormholes, no communicating with _us_ , and he’d be paralyzed—” Misha protested.

“Yes, and he’ll be partially paralyzed and psi null without treatment. Only in addition to the ordinary complications of being a paraplegic he’ll be on dialysis and recovering from surgery to remove necrotic muscle tissue. Don’t you think he’d prefer to _live _than suffer and die?”__

No one ever accused Katie of beating around the bush. Her bluntness smacked Misha in the face and left him reeling. They were _wasting time_ while Jensen got sicker all because Misha was scared. Katie was giving him an option, a way to buy time. She was onboard with his crazy burgeoning plan to find their symbiotes, steal them back, and get the hell out of Dodge, all while _she_ was sick, and Misha was paralyzed with fear and yelling at her like it was her fault? _No!_ Way to let their enemies win! The rage and hatred that had been building in Misha dissipated in a heartbeat, while the tension left his body on a long exhale. The throbbing in his temple slowed and eased, and with less pain thinking and _sensing_ the world around him was much more manageable. He could feel the adrenaline crash coming on, and let himself collapse against the sink for support. Misha had made hundreds of life-or-death decisions before. He had a choice, and he knew what he had to do. Buy time; give Jensen a fighting chance. “H—have you asked Jensen?” 

“Yes.” Katie smiled, relief shining through, but without a hint of smugness. “Jensen’s worried, he’s a _lot_ more scared about losing his telepathic abilities than being paralyzed.”

“But he—he doesn’t remember how it was before his body adapted and started using procogitol as a workaround,” Misha pointed out. He hated to think of Jensen being blindsided by the effects of his spinal cord injury while already anxious about being isolated in his own mind.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” Katie said softly. “Jensen may not remember, but he understands his body—he _showed_ me what it feels like for him. I can’t describe it, and I’m not sure I have the control to share his memory right now, but it’s different. His awareness, how he moves, it’s not like you or me. He gets what’s being rerouted and what’s not…” Katie grimaced. “I _am_ worried about how he’ll handle the telepathic isolation. He confided that he’s terrified he’ll take the treatment and die anyway, only he’ll be entirely alone. He won’t get to share his last moments with you.”

_Jesus!_ That was probably the worst form of torture for Jensen. Isolation from their bond—it would be painful for Misha too, but if he made it and Jensen died, and they couldn’t connect… “If we do the treatment, and he’s still slipping away and we haven’t found a way out of here, is there anything you could do to _forcibly_ negate the panantipropenol?” Misha wondered aloud.

“Without having the time to spare to work on an antidote?” Katie shrugged, “It’s possible administering a massive dose of procogitol and other key neurotransmitters would at least temporarily override the effects of the drug. I can promise to try it if we run out of time, but I’m not giving up easily.”

“Fair enough.” Not a guarantee, but it was better than nothing. “What about ORDA finding out? You’ve had your ear to the ground while I’ve been stuck offworld… How do you think they’ll respond if they find out?”

“About the panantipropenol? They can’t. If they do, we’re all fucked,” Katie said with a fake laugh.

“That seems to be a common result these days,” Misha snarked.

“Yeah, well, it’s the truth,” Katie replied. “Good news is I already acquired a dose, and I should be able to administer it without detection. I’ll have to falsify the logs, be careful with testing and blood work, but I should be able to pass it off as Jensen’s body finally shutting down, the resistance that’s been developing kicking in.” She paused, seemingly fixated on her hands again. Her feet had stilled in their nervous—or uncontrollable—swinging, and an eerie silence fell over the room.

With the normal ebb and flow of information between them impaired, Misha couldn’t tell _what_ was wrong, but he knew something was. Considering they’d already more or less agreed to steal back their symbiotes, flee the organization and government to whom they’d sworn allegiance, and attempt to save Misha’s husband’s life with a torture drug that could very well kill or permanently maim him, Misha couldn’t fathom what could be so bad as to make Katie clam up now. So, he let the quiet and stillness linger, giving Katie the time she needed to verbalize whatever it was that was bigger than life, death, and treason put together.

“When you and Jensen were in the hospital on M’Nell, I kept logs of Jensen’s treatment and recovery.” She didn’t look up and remained motionless. 

Misha shifted uncomfortably against the sink, digging his fingers into its rim, squeezing until his hands were a mottled display of angry red and bloodless yellow.

“I made personal notes before I submitted my official reports, and I saved them on the secure server. They were all encrypted and password protected, but they were still there, on a network that ORDA controls. At the time, it seemed—reasonable?” Her voice rose with the question, searching in its tone as if now even she didn’t understand what she was thinking. “Kane was dead, Gen. Lehne had been captured, the Licinian attacks had stopped, and the Fropali were brokering a peace deal. That doesn’t excuse it though. 

“I—I was so surprised, a—and excited,” her voice cracked, “by Jensen’s recovery and how procogitol was acting as an intermediary in his nervous system. I guess I let my excitement override my judgment… For a moment I was just a doctor who’d made a paradigm-shifting breakthrough . My personal notes made reference to procogitol’s primary role in Marker telepathy—”

Misha’s rapid intake of breath reverberated around the room.

“I didn’t mention telepathy in my official reports, but—looking back, the way I talked about the neurotransmitters, one could definitely infer they did something more than _just_ facilitate wormhole apertures via WMDs and the unexpected role they played in Jensen’s recovery. I wiped my personal files at the first hint of things here on Earth being not quite right, and I’ve since altered the official report, backdated it, even called in Genevieve to cover my tracks, but—”

“Chances are someone may have read either the original report or your notes or have saved a copy of them,” Misha said emotionlessly. 

“Yes.” Katie nodded. “I—I want the information on procogitol’s ability to function as a bypass for spinal cord injuries out there. Right now it can only help Markers, but if there’s a way to make it compatible for humans—there are humans who might want that as a treatment option. That’s the kind of medical science and advancement ORDA’s supposed to be making. That’s the promise they sold me on to get me to cooperate more willingly back when I was first exposed to the program.

“But now ORDA has a manual on how to cripple Jensen—and if he survives, well I’d be surprised if they _didn’t_ use it against him.”

“You’re afraid they’ll figure out what we’re planning to do with the panantipropenol and try to dose him with it,” Misha whispered.

Katie’s head bobbed up and down in agreement. “Yes,” she breathed, “but if they realize what my report and notes really mean—right now ORDA doesn’t _know_ Markers are telepathic. A lot of the humans _suspect_ we are. They see us being too in-tune with each other; they infer there’s something going on with our translation and linguistic abilities; they spread rumors that we’re _different_ that way… But they don’t understand what that means, and they don’t understand the extent or the implications.”

“But they could—and if ORDA’s new Command figures out we’re susceptible to panantipropenol and administering it does more than just turn off our ability to create wormholes, they might use it on us,” Misha inferred.

“Elevate that to _will_ use it on us to torture or incapacitate, and you’re on the right track,” Katie murmured. “Misha, if they get a clue they’ll figure out how to _weaponize_ it.”

Misha’s grip on the sink slipped, leading him to slam into it with his ribs. He grunted in pain, grateful it was his _good side_. Still, the last thing he needed was a cracked rib. “Is—is that even possible?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“Right now we have the technology to load it into tranq darts. That doesn’t give ORDA a mass effect, but it’s still a risk and could be devastating in the field. Given enough… motivation… they could probably aerosolize it,” Katie admitted reluctantly.

The image sprang unbidden to his mind. Markers on an op, suddenly overcome by gas that left rendered them cut off and alone, isolated. Even if you _knew_ it was possible and expected it could happen, it would undoubtedly cause panic, disorientation, and fear. Deployed effectively ORDA could use it to do everything from disorienting a single soldier on a team, enabling others—say human comrades—to turn on him— _and didn’t that sound like a bloody reenactment of Order 66 from_ Revenge of the Sith _?_ —to isolating individual officers to completely disrupting communications between Marker troops. _Families—civilians—children…_ Misha realized with sickening clarity if ORDA Command was turning on Markers within their ranks, what could they do to those outside the organization? _If we’re targets than none of us is safe, not our families, not unsuspecting individuals who have no clue there’s anything different about them…_

When his awareness shifted away from the scene playing out in his minds’ eye and back to the physical world around him, Katie was looking him in the eye and nodding with understanding.

“You had to know the risk. Jensen insisted,” she said.

“So, what, all this and we’re supposed to sacrifice him because there’s _more_ of a chance they could figure it out and develop a new weapon against us? No,” he shook his head emphatically, “no fucking way. Jensen’s too damn important—to me, to you, to _all_ of us. He may not recognize it, he may not know it, but it’s true. And if we let him die on the off chance it might prolong them discovering yet another way to fuck with it, we’re falling to their level. If we want any chance of survival, any chance of making it out of this with our lives and dignity and culture and abilities and _heritage_ intact, we have to treat our people better than that!” 

The smile that broke across Katie’s face was the first genuine smile he’d seen since returning to Earth. It even reached her eyes. “Just had to make sure we agreed.”

“I do have one good piece of news,” Misha added hoping the news he’d gathered while he was away would bring a small measure of happiness to Katie. “Before she disappeared, General Ferris left orders—everyone on my old team, Kane's, and Harris’ has been promoted.”

She laughed. “Like that’ll do us any good now.”

“I don’t know, Major Cassidy has a nice ring to it.”

_Interlude 1_

A year and a half ago, Alona Tal’s co-worker and friend, Jensen, had disappeared. She’d never believed it was a “family emergency,” but when he showed up in her office months later, the haunted, earnest Jensen she found, wasn’t what she’d expected. Neither was the mysterious pillbox he’d given her with instructions to open and use in case of pending apocalypse.

After Jensen’s surprise visit, Alona was unsettled, apprehensive, intrigued, curious, a little excited, and a whole lot scared... But she wasn’t really sure she would know when to use the mysterious pillbox when the time came. What was she looking for? Would she know it when she saw it? This was her life, her future she was playing with, not really something she wanted to trust to Justice Potter Stewart’s sniff-test. 

And maybe that was part of the problem... She had trusted Jensen despite herself. She knew she should be skeptical—of Jensen’s story, of his sanity, of what was in the box. But she wasn’t. She believed him when he said it wasn’t a suicide pill, and even though the box made no noise when it moved, she didn’t doubt there was something inside. She also believed him when he said something was coming and Nicki was already protected. Granted she didn’t know the _what_ and the _why_... but she knew they were there. All she had to do was open her eyes, look at the very real conspiracies and twisted policies that acted like conspiracies, the travails of reality about which Nicki was always rallying. Her imagination was also perfectly willing to propose details to fill in the blanks.

_Chapter 8_

“Jared,” Misha whispered into the phone. They were talking through phones behind glass, like a prison, only this was supposedly for Misha’s protection, since he was “sick.” ORDA was still denying they knew the cause of the “mysterious Marker illness,” and they refused to return the symbiotes.

“Yeah, boss,” Jared answered, “Hate to say this, but you look like shit.”

“Thanks,” Misha replied with a genuine smile. It was so good to see a healthy friend. 

_Listen, I’ve got a mission for you and Genevieve. If you choose to accept it, you could save our lives, but we’ll be on ORDA’s most wanted list._

“So, the weather sure isn’t interesting,” Jared replied, keeping up the illusion that they were having a verbal conversation.

_We’re in. They’ll come for us next. There’s ten more of us gone this week. Reassigned. No one knows where. What’s the plan?_

“Glad I’m not missing anything,” Misha answered.

_So here’s the deal. Jensen’s dying. I’m sick, Katie’s sick. Aldis just got back—they took his symbiote yesterday and he’s already as bad as I am._ He looked Jared in the eye. _I need Gen to hack into ORDA’s central servers, divert the guards, unlock the hospital wing, and disable the security around our symbiotes._

_Symbiotes?_ Jared asked.

_WMDs, long story._

“Ahh, I see,” Jared said aloud.

Then, to Misha. _We’re game. I assume there’s a breakout to follow?_

_Through the hospital, during the morning shift change_ , Misha confirmed, meaning they would exit through the University Medical Center situated above ORDA’s base. _There will be two groups. Abel’s leading the folks who aren’t sick. I’m taking the people who are. We’ll have limited mobility so…_

_Gen and I will figure out a way to get you mobile._ “What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Misha lied. _There’s just some files I need Genevieve to steal, and if you do this—_

_We’ll be going on the run with you._ “Okay, boss. No problem,” Jared confirmed.

~~~

Ice, freezing knives, stabbing in his veins as they burned. The shock of sensation jolted Jensen to consciousness... Or semi consciousness; as soon as he surfaced the overwhelming pain drove him back down, deeper, begging unconsciousness to take him away. Later, he would wonder how he could have been so single-minded that he didn’t spare a thought for his own safety, but the pain was too great. He also didn’t spare a thought for how odd it was that he could feel at all.

Jensen drifted in between unconsciousness and wakefulness. It could have been minutes or days—the pain never receded, no matter how deep he slipped, so he could not seem to surrender his consciousness completely. Yet every attempt to surface, brought the pain back so strong he had no choice but to let go.

When he finally surfaced for real, the pain was still there—in his lungs, his back, and even his legs. He was vaguely aware that, while painful, breathing was easier than it had been... before, whenever that was. As his eyes blinked open, he had trouble focusing, and didn’t recognize what little he could make out.

Noise. Echoing... Words? Speech distorted as if he were at the bottom of a well—a very full well with a high water table. He was drowning, only he was not. When the dissonance finally trickled through the fog in his brain, he blinked his eyes open again—he wasn’t really sure when he had closed them—and tried to focus. He was staring up at a dusty, off-white popcorn ceiling with a cracked, white enamel light fixture at its center. The solitary fluorescent bulb at its center was turned off in favor of sunlight streaming in through a window located somewhere behind Jensen’s head. _Something, maybe curtains, was diffusing the light, making it soothing to Jensen’s eyes._

He glanced around, ignoring the words he glanced around the room, taking in his surroundings. Beige walls, light switch, desk, chair... maybe something that looked like a closet. That was all he could make out from where he lay... Lay, so he was on a bed? Something softish, and a little scratch was underneath him. There were places that the sensation wasn’t so clear, but that was normal... right? It seemed right, but nothing about his situation made sense. He wasn’t sure where he was or what had happened or why he was still in pain, or why being alive was so... surprising.

_Not on base,_ he thought, and yes, that much was clear. There was natural light streaming in through a window, not down a shaft nor simulated by a full-spectrum lamp. So, he wasn’t underground. But where was he? Hospital? The color wasn’t that far off, but it didn’t smell right, and there were none of the machines or noises he would associate with a hospital or clinic here or on any other world. 

Pain, no, anxiety, washed over him. It took him a minute to realize it wasn’t his own... which meant it belonged to someone else, which meant there was someone else in the room, and...

“Jensen, can you hear me?” the voice was firm but friendly, and familiar. 

He blinked again and looked up. _Katie._ Her blonde hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, her face was blotchy, and her eyes were pinched with pain. She was wearing rumpled BDUs with all the patches stripped off—it made Jensen immediately think of someone from Stargate going on an offworld mission in the Pegasus galaxy. It was funny, and Jensen wanted to laugh, but it struck him as grossly inappropriate given the situation, whatever that was. He blinked and looked again. Katie’s clothes looked slept-in, while she herself looked like she hadn’t slept in days.

There were others, other people in the room now. They’d probably been there the whole time, but Jensen hadn’t seen them or sensed them until now. They were still hazy and indistinct, but clear enough Jensen knew they were Naiians, and familiar enough, he knew they were friends.

“Jensen, can you hear me?”

It was Katie again, and she was speaking in his mind as well as out loud, only the mental communication felt muffled somehow, and when Jensen tried to focus on it, the pain in his head ratcheted up tenfold.

“I—I hear—you,” Jensen said, his voice cracking with disuse. His throat felt like he’d swallowed sandpaper, and he knew that meant something when taken in context with his pain and disorientation, but his mind wasn’t quite alert enough to figure out _what_.

“Oh, thank god,” Misha spluttered, his presence crashing over Jensen’s mind loving and earnest and awash with relief even as he scrambled to Jensen’s side. 

It was Misha’s anxiety Jensen had felt, Misha’s mind that was the most familiar in the room, and the clearest of all the emotions. Something was wrong with him, with everyone, because processing emotions shouldn’t be this difficult, and people’s emotions shouldn’t be so... frayed.

He forced himself to focus again and looked at Misha properly this time. He looked terrible, eyes bloodshot, hair almost stringy with sweat. His BDUs were even worse for wear than Katie’s—smudged with dirt and torn at one elbow. Misha’s hands were shaking—so were Katie’s, now that Jensen paid attention—and his knuckles were scabbed and scraped like he’d recently been in a fight. Or maybe digging or rooting around in something electrical, since the scrapes continued up the backs of Misha’s hands and onto the exposed portion of his wrists, and some of the wounds looked more like burns.

“Wh—what’s going on?” Jensen managed, the words setting off a wracking cough that took him a full minute to get under control. 

Katie was there waiting with ice chips, which meant she must have moved at some point, and Jensen had missed it. He already knew he wasn’t tracking very well, but this was ridiculous, and if he was honest, very scary. Nonetheless, he sucked down the ice chips greedily, and waited patiently for an answer to his question.

Jensen was working the third spoonful of ice chips around his mouth when Katie spoke. “What do you remember?”

Answering a question with a question, so that was how it was going to be? Coming from Katie, who had the lowest tolerance for evasive bullshit of anyone Jensen had ever known and who took every opportunity she could to employ honesty, this was very, very bad. Still, it was a valid question, and not necessarily evasive. After all, Katie couldn’t very well explain what was going on if she was unsure of Jensen’s context.

So, Jensen sucked it up, held his retort, and tried to answer. The giant blank spot in his memory probably shouldn’t have been so surprising given the amount of pain he _did_ recall being in—or the current throbbing ache still lingering in his skull—but it shocked him nonetheless, perhaps because of his current physical and mental state. Even Jensen realized he wasn’t exactly operating on all cylinders. The black abyss in his mind seemed to reach out in all directions, giving him no handholds or landmarks by which to navigate. The threads of his memories around the hole were jumbled, tangled, and twisted in disarray, making it almost impossible to track his way back to what he’d been doing... before. Before whatever this was. Some of the fragments were _wrong_ , devoid of life and missing detail, but he wasn’t sure how. He just knew they didn’t feel right, as if they were not his own.

Frustrated, he pushed with his mind, forcing away the pain and spiraling uncertainty, only to be met with a wave of nausea for his efforts. And that didn’t make any sense. Telepathy came easily to Jensen, it was something he’d figured out instinctively and intuitively. He’d never struggled and he’d certainly never felt pain or become physically ill, just by using his gifts. _Think!_ he berated himself. All these anomalies and incongruities were clues, evidence, put them together and they tell a story of what happened. It was a skill at which Jensen excelled. Piecing together a narrative from fragmented evidence was a skill Jensen had learned as a lawyer, long before he learned about the existence of wormholes or aliens.

Pain, nausea, memory loss, scratchy throat, physical weakness, impaired telepathy... What did they add up to? He cast about in his jumble of memories tossing the clues out there until one held fast. “They took our WMDs. Our... symbiotes.” And they’d decided on that term he and Katie, picking Stargate over Star Trek, even though from what he could tell, the sleek biomechanical artificial life forms with which they’d bonded were benign and harbored no fantasies of galactic domination. He knew as he spoke the words were true; more fragments of memory slotted into place around the recollection, starting to fill in the missing time and other gaps. Yet he could distinctly feel the comforting, familiar weight of his simbiote tucked in the pouch sewn into his pants, snugged up tight against his body. It was there, his body was no longer searching for it—he couldn’t quite suppress the shudder—and it was definitely his. The same, unchanged. That meant at some point, somehow, Jensen had gotten his original symbiote back, and he had absolutely no memory of how or when.

“Yes,” Katie confirmed. “And before you start asking questions, can you feel your legs, or move anything below your rib cage?”

“Again?” Jensen griped, speaking faster than his muddled thought process would allow. “Really—we’re—di’I hurt myself again?” He hadn’t reconstructed his memory beyond their superiors confiscating their WMDs and putting them under guard when they initially refused to comply. They hadn’t been refusing orders, but trying to determine the origin of the orders and how they’d come through the chain of command. It wasn’t a facially unreasonable request either—their immediate CO was offworld and his immediate superior, who was a General and one of the five on the governing counsel, no less, was mysteriously unavailable. No one had seen or heard from General Ferris since she’d been summoned to Dusseldorf for a command meeting. If the order came from her or a superior officer within her Division of ORDA, the order was legal and they had to comply. But if it was from someone outside their division—a distinct possibility given the order came from an MP with the rank of First Lieutenant from another Division—the chain of command was decidedly unclear and the order possibly illegal as surrendering their WMDs effectively destroyed their combat readiness. It was a blur after that, but Jensen remembered his symbiote being removed while he was physically restrained, and then a whole lot pain and nothing until he woke up here, wherever here was. Had he fallen or been shot and fucked up his spine _again_? But that didn’t make sense because the procogitol should have kicked in and—

“Jensen.” It was Misha who spoke his name, a soft murmur barely above a whisper.

“Um,” Jensen replied, turning his focus to the present and centering on his body in the here and now. He was in pain, more now than when he’d returned to consciousness a few minutes ago, as if drugs were wearing off, only his mind’s fogginess felt nothing like a narcotic haze, lifting or otherwise. That pain extended down the length of his body, including his legs as a half-numb ache. He could feel something below and around him—faint pressure, a vague sense of contact that gave way in places to something clearer, fabric, somewhere between soft and scratch, like a fine cloth that had been over-starched or maybe two different materials in contact with one another. He looked down at his body, lifting his head—and _ow_ , that fucking hurt; the muscles in his neck protested as if they were lifting a solid lead ball. He was wearing pale, sea green scrubs, not the standard ORDA issue, which were blue, or the UWMC staff scrubs (also blue, just a slightly different shade), so maybe something that had come out of a doctor or nurse’s personal stash? He was lying in a bed, tiny and narrow, with too-small sheets and a thin blanket, and judging by the much clearer press of fabric on his arm, that was the scratchiness he was feeling. “Um,” he repeated again, acutely aware both Misha and Katie were awaiting his answer, staring at him with twin expressions of escalating concern. “I can feel, at least some stuff. Feels weirder than usual,” he added.

“Weirder how?” Katie asked skeptically. Jensen thought he saw a tremor of fear run its way along her jaw.

“Um,” Jensen struggled, wishing for once he was drugged so his internal monologue was broadcasting itself verbally for all to hear. For that matter, why couldn’t Kate and Misha _sense_ what he was feeling. Sure it would take some effort— Jensen remembered the agony and nausea he’d encountered moments before, and broke off that train of thought. Maybe they were all sick, injured? “Everything’s vague, more distant than usual. Bigger numb patches, pressure and sensation less distinct,” he managed at last.

Katie made a humming tutting noise, and appraised Jensen while consulting the readout on her handheld scanner. 

_Where had that come from?_ Jensen wondered. _I’m not tracking too well._

“Yeah, we can see that, babe,” Misha said, squeezing into the space between Katie and the bed next to Jensen’s head. He gave Jensen’s hand a reassuring pat.

Huh? _Oh_ , he must have said that aloud, or maybe projected it? No, definitely aloud. He had been intentionally not reaching out with his mind since that last bout of nausea had hit. Jensen didn’t think he was up to puking right now.

“Yeah, I don’t suppose you are,” Misha said affectionately.

Great, he was babbling and not even aware he was speaking.

“I promise we’ll explain about the nausea and everything, but we need to know if you can move anything below the site of your injury.” Misha’s face contorted into a crooked smile that was probably supposed to be comforting or maybe reassuring, but came off as pained and fake. 

Jensen was distracted again, this time by the sensation of his left hand rattling, the plastic clip on his IV jittering against the back of his hand. He looked down and realized Misha’s hand was shaking, no all of him was shaking. His body wracked by tremors more noticeable than Katie’s. Jensen wanted to ask why, say something to show his concern, but Misha’s words finally penetrated the hazy confusion in Jensen’s mind. Answer first; ask later.

So, he turned his focus inward again, taking stock of his body and preparing to test his lower limbs. This meant acknowledging details he didn’t like to think about or allude to in conversation, never mind discuss openly. But this was Misha and Katie asking, after all. Squeamish or not, he owed it to them to be honest. At least Misha hadn’t implied there was a new injury. That was something... unless this was a test to determine if a new injury had cost Jensen movement. He was having _issues_ with sensation that he didn’t particularly want to examine too closely.

Reluctantly, Jensen went about answering the question. After giving a mental coin-flip to determine what muscle group and level of control to test, he decided to try wiggling his toes—first on the right, then on the left.

He concentrated, thinking about his toes moving—up, down; curl, flex—he was aware of the hesitation, the gap where the nerve impulses were garbled and choked up. Even on his right side, his spinal injury had an impact, and he could feel as his mind bridged the gap... Only his movements came jerky and delayed. A second later the sense of weakness filtered back across the neurotelapathic interface. “‘S all laggy and weird,” he admitted, watching his toes waver. “Shouldn’ notice the difference.” And that was true. On most days, he had to consciously remind himself his right leg was affected because movement honestly felt no different than it had before he’d taken a plasma burst to the back at point-blank range.

He glanced up at Katie apprehensively; he wasn’t really sure why. 

She nodded, and Jensen understood.

He was looking for that command, a sign. Keep testing; keep reporting. He couldn’t wiggle a few toes and call it good.

So, Jensen looked back at his feet, wincing at the strain in his neck, and tried to repeat the process with his left foot.

Nothing happened.

He tried again, this time tuning out the rest of the world and narrowing his concentration down to his toes and the steps necessary to move them. He could feel the point where the signal got stuck traveling the length of his spine. Normally, or what passed for normal in his life, the transition from his central nervous system to the telepathic bridge was flawless, so close to seamless it was almost unnoticeable. Jensen concentrated, feeling the connection stall. He reached out with his mind and _pushed_ , forcing the connection. At first there was nothing, the impulses sputtered and died, and he couldn’t seem to connect with his body. Panic swelled in Jensen’s throat, but he swallowed around the lump and turned his fear into determination. He could do this. He’d touched Misha’s mind a few minutes ago, so he could do this now. Jensen tried again, this time he felt the nerve impulse jump like a spark bumping along over the telepathic bridge and zipping along the nerves in his leg until it arrived at his chosen destination. His toes moved, but it was a more frantic waving motion than he had intended. 

Jensen hadn’t said anything, but he heard Katie and Misha give a collective sigh of relief. He looked up and tracked their gaze to where it was fixated on the tips of his toes sticking out from the end of the too-short blanket. 

Jensen tried again. This time he felt the lag, spark, and surge, but was able to maintain control of the movement, flexing his ankle smoothly. “Fuck,” he muttered aloud. “Shouldn’t be so...” he searched for the right word, “jerky.” He settled on at last. Right now, if he tried to walk or do anything that required coordination and timing, he’d fall flat on his face. He really wanted to know _why_ his body was behaving so strangely, but the relief at being able to move won out over his curiosity.

“How ‘bout a major muscle group or two?” Katie asked, her voice and expression stuck somewhere between false cheerfulness and trepidation. “Maybe bend your knee and try to straighten your leg? Right then left? If that’s okay you can try it against resistance?”

Jensen gulped and nodded, moving to comply. His right leg moved okay, bending and straightening without too much fuss. Only the action left him feeling winded and tired, and it took too much effort to actually lift his leg—his hip flexors started to cramp when he did—so he slid his heel along the sheet, taking comfort in the sensation of the fabric brushing against his skin.

Katie nodded. “Good.”

Misha squeezed Jensen’s hand, fingers stroking along the back of his hand in a reassuring rhythm.

No one was saying it, but they were all holding their breath.

Jensen stole a glance at Misha and vowed to succeed if only to take the haunted look out of his husband’s eyes. 

Biting his lip, Jensen repeated the movement on his left side. This time he didn’t even try to lift his leg, he just concentrated on slowly telling his muscles to contract, bending his knee and bringing it up inch by inch, his heel moving in stutter steps along the bed as it dragged along for the ride. Gravity pulled Jensen’s knee out to the side, rotating his leg outward at the hip, but Jensen didn’t—couldn’t—fight it. He was out of breath and sweating when he finally got his knee bent to about a 45 degree angle, and he took a moment to rest, steeling himself. His muscles felt fluttery, the nerve impulses almost burned as they made the transition back and forth across the bridge. He’d never felt anything like it, but when he stopped the unusual sensations stopped as well, and by the time he’d more or less caught his breath, he thought he could get his leg straightened without too much difficulty.

He was wrong.

It started smoothly enough; Jensen pushed with his quads and let his heel and calf slide gently against the sheet. He smiled when the movement came more naturally—he was only vaguely aware of the changeover and there was no burning sensation this time around. His muscles felt more or less normal too. Everything changed when he got his knee to about a 90 degree angle. Jensen felt a strange surge of flutters that made him pause. They passed just as soon as he stopped moving, so he ignored the sensation and continued. As soon as the impulse translated to movement Jensen felt a surge of fire in his leg and his quads cramped _hard_. “Ow, fuck,” Jensen whimpered, hands flying to grip his thigh, desperate to massage out the agonizing knots that had suddenly sprung up.

“Jensen?” Misha asked, as his hand followed Jensen’s down to his thigh.

“M—” Jensen didn’t get to finish the word, or even fully formulate the thought. The moment his fingers touched his leg, there was another flare of pain, this one in his back just above the damaged part of his spine, and every muscle in his lower body, spasmed all at once. Jensen felt as if he was being electrocuted or stabbed from a million different places—knives with serrated tips, dipped in acid. His stomach muscles clenched, curling him into a tight ball, his right leg coming up to join his left, tucked in tight even as the spasming muscles in his back wanted to lay him out the other way, curved back like a bow. “Aaaah,” Jensen moaned, unable to make a more coherent sound. He couldn’t move. It wasn’t that his nerves weren’t firing or the message wasn’t getting through, more like his body was trying to stimulate everything at once to make up for its earlier sluggishness. In a tiny detached corner of his mind, he marveled at the ability to feel pain even in the parts of his body that were numb to the sheets and bed around him.

“Jensen, Jensen!” Misha’s was shaking his arm.

It was gentle, but Jensen wished he would stop. It was too much for his brain to process.

“Is he seizing?” Misha’s voice sounded distant. Jensen could hear the panic and dismay in it even though it sounded far away.

There was a beeping whir next to Jensen’s head (which was now level with his knees).

“No, not seizing—shit!” That was Katie.

She must be looking at her scanner, Jensen realized. He forced his eyelids open against the pain, fixating on the blurry hands hovering over his body.

“What?” Misha asked, his voice icy.

“His procogitol levels. They’ve spiked again.” Katie showed Misha the scanner. “Higher than they were at the worst of his symbiote withdrawal.”

Jensen understood the words but the context made no sense. His procogitol had spiked? And that was a bad thing? That was causing— His thoughts broke off and his vision whited out. Burning, bludgeoning, his muscles were so tight his bones would surely break. It was agony and there was no end. No relief. 

“Fuck! Get my kit!” Katie shouted at Misha. It was clearly an order, but Misha didn’t hesitate to respond. Even through the shroud of his pain Jensen could hear Misha moving around in the background. That was Katie’s “I’m a medical officer and I can overrule the council when it comes to medical matters” voice. No one messed with it. No one took offense. And no one questioned it...

Except... Jensen had a feeling once someone _had_ questioned, and that was somehow related to the mess in which they presently found themselves.

“What do you need?” Misha’s voice called from somewhere far across the room.

“Muscle relaxant. Hurry, just bring the whole thing.”

Jensen didn’t open his eyes again. Vision and light were too much to handle with the pain he was in, but he heard Misha’s footsteps, the grating stutter of a chair skittering across tile, the plop of Katie’s medical bag. It was her field pack, the big one almost as big as her that they took on offworld missions where things were particularly fucked up—search and rescue, field surgery, abused and starving refugees, situations where they’d be cut off from backup for a long time—Jensen could tell by the sound it made. He didn’t know how to feel about it, either. Katie dragging around a portable field hospital on what felt like Earth? It certainly didn’t add up to anything good.

A sharp burn followed by a flush of cold alerted Jensen to Katie pushing the drug into the IV inserted in the back of his hand. He waited for relief to follow, but it didn’t come. If anything his abdominal muscles seemed to cramp tighter in protest.

“Is that going to be enough?” Misha asked skeptically. He was clearly hovering. Jensen could tell just from the sound.

“No,” Katie admitted almost instantly. “This is the standard dose for a _human_ of Jensen’s height and weight. I can’t even begin to guess how much it will take given the overload of procogitol in his system, but if I give him as much as I think it will take, I’ll probably stop his heart.”

“Don’t want that.” Misha’s voice was tinged with meek horror. “He’s not breathing.”

“Shit!” Katie cursed. “His pulse is through the roof. Blood pressure’s skyrocketing. Jensen, Jen, you need to breathe. In and out, come on; try it for me, will you?”

Was he breathing? Jensen realized belatedly that Katie was correct, he knew he needed air, but he couldn’t spare the attention to figure out how. There was nothing wrong with his lungs, he just couldn’t figure out how to breathe around the pain and spasms.

“Ackles!” 

Jensen felt his body jerk, his spine attempt to straighten despite his situation. That was Misha’s commanding officer voice, and Jensen responded to it reflexively. Despite his reluctance his time with ORDA really had changed him, brought out his inner soldier.

“Breathe, in and out. Come on,” Misha ordered.

It hurt, but Jensen found himself responding. The first breath was agony, the second easier, and he realized the lack of oxygen had been making everything worse.

“Come on, keep going. Good job, thank you, baby, just keep breathing for me,” Misha babbled, slipping from commanding officer back into the role of distraught spouse.

“Jensen?” Katie was leaning close to him, he could feel the warmth of her breath on his face. She rested her left hand on his shoulder, one of the few muscles in his body that weren’t spasming in agony. “I need you to focus on relaxing. I know it sounds impossible, but just think about your muscles doing nothing. Let your body melt into the bed. Don’t try to support your own weight, just let go.” Her tone changed and he could tell the next statement was aimed at Misha. “It’s a longshot, but if he actively tells his muscles to react, it might force the procogitol into compliance, or at least soften its effects.” 

Jensen wanted to say something, let Katie know the drugs weren’t doing anything, but he couldn’t get any words past his lips, and he had enough sense to not even attempt telepathic communication at this point. 

“It’s not working,” Katie said, her tone more frustrated than surprised. 

Jensen heard a rustling noise, the clink of glass, and then the burning cool rush of more drugs flooding his system.

“Do, do you think we should give him more panantipropenol?” Misha asked.

And Jensen couldn’t have heard that right, because panantipropenol was a drug used to torture telepathic prisoners. It was supposed to be permanent too...

“No,” Katie said, shaking her head. Jensen felt the end of her ponytail brushing against his arm. “It’s only been 60 hours since I gave him the first dose of panantipropenol.”

Okay, he definitely hadn’t misheard.

“I’m a little surprised it’s worn off this fast, but relieved,” Katie continued.

“But these levels of procogitol, isn’t that still bad? Dangerous? Isn’t that just going to make his body become more resistant, cause more permanent damage to his body’s ability to use, it, destroy more muscle?”

Jensen’s blood froze, and it felt like all the spasms stopped for a split second. He moaned in pain, but he wasn’t really sure if it was emotional or psychological pain—fear—at its root. He’d been separated from his WMD, his symbiote, and suddenly it started to make sense. He still wasn’t remembering what had happened, but the pain, symptoms, concern, the use of panantipropenol... It was painting a picture in his mind, a picture of sheer horror. Resistance or insensitivity to procogitol meant no telepathy, no connecting with Misha, no wormholes, no walking, no sensation. It was 3/4 to the way to being suddenly human, and Jensen had never been human. He also had no clue how it would impact his adaptive abilities either. He shuddered, a little ripple of movement at his shoulders that set off the spasms again... He concentrated on not moving, relaxing like Katie said. Maybe he was imagining it. Maybe it was the drugs, but the agony seemed to ease a little.

He had nothing against being human. The fear and revulsion that raced through him from head to toe weren’t borne out of bigotry or superiority. It was the violation. Being harmed against his will. Someone got the bright idea to take their ability to make and control wormholes away from them with absolutely no concern or thought for how it would impact their health or what sort of collateral damage it would cause. Someone else’s fear, bigotry, hatred, and jealousy might just have permanently altered his life, and there was no way Jensen could accept that gracefully.

“Yes,” Katie answered, in that blunt, no-nonsense tone she used when explaining why something horrible was actually good (or at least better than the alternatives). 

The clatter from part way across the room, had to be Misha—whether he’d lost his balance or thrown something, Jensen wasn’t sure.

“Misha, it’s a good sign the panantipropenol wore off this fast. This is a setback, but you saw and felt for yourself, Jensen demonstrated more sensation, movement, and telepathic control than he had in the three days before I dosed him. This procogitol surge is dangerous, but I don’t want to mess with his biochemistry any more. Think about it, what if this is a side effect of the panantipropenol wearing off? If we dose him again, that means subjecting him to another spike when it wears off—delaying his recovery and subjecting him to more pain and harm. He’s got his symbiote back now. As the panantipropenol continues to wear off, he should be able to reconnect with the symbiote and that should restore balance to his brain chemistry.”

“But—” Misha protested.

“I’m sorry. This is uncharted territory for all of us, I can’t give you definites, and you know that.”

Connect with his WMD... wait, wait. Jensen tried to push through the fog of pain. He hadn’t even thought of the tiny device or the intrinsic role it played in his life. Earlier, was it really only 10 minutes? He’d half-asked Katie if their symbiotes had been returned. He hadn’t felt it or even tried to. He realized he wasn’t _searching_ for it either. 

“How’s your pain? Spasms?” Katie interrupted his thoughts.

Jensen tried to talk, but a whimper came out. The pain was still bad, but the spasms were easing. It no longer felt like he was going to snap his back in two, but he also couldn’t uncurl from the fetal ball he into which he was currently curled. 

“I’m going to give you a little more, but I need you to keep telling your body to relax. Your respiration rate is dropping again”

Now that she said it, Jensen could feel his body getting heavier, the muscles that weren’t cramping hard or spasming on and off were becoming harder and harder to control. His lungs felt like soupy Jell-O and... and... 

_Flash._ He felt the connection bloom in his mind. More than a spark, less painful than an explosion, and bright as staring at the sun. He was bathed in a warm, soothing glow he didn’t need eyes to see. It was there in the room with him, his symbiote, and he realized at that moment the pain had been so bad he’d stopped searching for it. All this time he’d been conscious and he hadn’t reached out. It terrified him that something so basic, instinctual, and necessary had been trained out of him in a relatively short time. “I—I need—” His words were slurred; the muscle relaxant was taking effect.

“Babe?” Misha asked, rushing to his side. 

Warm fingers closed over Jensen’s wrist again and he wrestled his eyelids open, blinking as he focused on Misha’s concerned gaze. “What do you need?”

“W—,” no that wasn’t right. “S—,” but his mouth couldn’t form the word.

Misha’s brow furrowed at Jensen’s struggle with garbled speech.

Jensen’s eyes went wide and he _pushed_ , sending the image, the concept of his connection to Misha. The bond flared between them, once message flowing with little effort, until the understanding was shared, and the connection ebbed. It didn’t break or snap or shatter or burn out, just slipped easily to the background, and for the first time since he’d woken up in this unknown place, Jensen dared to believe maybe everything would be okay again, if not _normal_ , then some semblance of recognizable.

“Katie,” Misha said, not breaking eye contact with Jensen, “get Jensen’s symbiote. He needs skin-to-skin contact. We should do the same.”

The shaky sigh that left Jensen’s body took more of the tension with it, and finally he felt the tension leaving him as the spasms began to subside and the muscle relaxants began to take effect.

It got even easier to breathe—and think—a few seconds later when Katie pressed into his hand the glowing egg-shaped paperweight that was so much more.

“The muscle relaxants are kicking in,” Misha observed.

“And his procogitol levels are dropping,” Katie confirmed. “Still elevated, but much better.”

“Skin-to-skin contact... Ya’ think it makes a difference?” Misha asked squeezing Jensen’s hand harder as he broke eye contact to glance over at Katie.

“It’s entirely possible,” Katie replied dropping shakily into one of two rickety, wooden chairs Jensen could now see were pulled up next to his bed. 

Jensen nodded in affirmation and glanced wide-eyed around what he could see of the room from where he was curled on his side. There was an actual IV pole there, one of the collapsible carbon fiber poles designed for field kits. Light weight, compact, noncorrosive, nonconductive, and durable, they were ideal for unpredictable and alien conditions. Seeing one here in what was looking more and more like a bedroom sparked a deep cognitive dissonance.

“There are any number of reasons it could help. Our skin is very conductive it might be physically easier to regulate the telepathic connections between our bodies and our symbiotes with direct physical contact. After all, as far as we know, we require touch to use a symbiote to open a wormhole. Even if it’s not, psychologically, physical contact may make the connection easier from a telepathic standpoint, and that may translate into a physiological response—less strain perceived or real and our bodies regulate hormone and pheromone production with greater ease,” Katie hypothesized.

“Okay. Then I guess we should figure out a way to make that easier,” Misha said, fingers of his free hand snaking under his shirt to his WMD holster.

Katie made a face, which Misha copied, and then burst out laughing. “A hahahaha, owww,” she said, clutching at her temples. “That hurt,” she complained.

And Jensen understood; telepathy was still causing them pain as well.

“Sorry,” Misha said, wincing, “but short of sticking them in our underwear—”

“Or bras,” Katie added around a pained giggle.”

“—yeah, well there’s really no way to maintain skin contact unless we hold them.” He made a flailing gesture with his hands. “Which would be completely impractical.”

“Well, we’ve been thinking of these as tools, or weapons,” Katie started.

“Wrong, fr—frame of reference,” Jensen managed.

“Yeah,” Misha agreed. “We can work out some kind of under-clothes pouch thing.”

“I think the Licinians use something like that,” Katie acknowledged.

Misha shrugged.

Yeah, that similarity was hardly unexpected. 

“So, now that Jensen’s... stable, I should probably check on the others... recommend direct contact...” Katie said, starting to rise.

“Others?” Jensen asked the word coming slowly, but less slurred. The pain had really improved since Katie had closed his fingers around his symbiote, and as the pain ebbed, his concentration returned. His memory, on the other hand, was still full of holes and gaping empty spots where nothing made sense. “What others? Where are we? And what the fuck happened?”

“Uh,” Misha hedged. “The others are Harris, Roberts, and Hodge, and we’re in a vacant UW dorm room.”

“Actually it’s a vacant suite,” Katie corrected. “Capt. Hodge is in rough shape, Lt. Roberts isn’t doing much better, but they’re both stable and sleeping—”

“Harris convinced us she was okay to watch them, and Katie relented, until we got you sorted out,” Misha finished.

“Wait, _Captain_ Hodge?” Jensen asked. “He get promoted or something? How long was I out?” Jensen asked incredulously. He was starting to understand what Han Solo must have felt like at the beginning of _Return of the Jedi_ , and he didn’t like it one bit. Powerlessness and disorientation started to chip away at the thin layer of calm that had blanketed him since the return of his symbiote.

“Hey,” Misha said, brushing hair away from Jensen’s forehead, voice reassuring. “It’s been about two and a half weeks since they confiscated WMDs.”

“You weren’t there,” Jensen remembered, scowling, but pushing against Misha’s hand for reassurance he was here now.

“No, I wasn’t, and I’m sorry. We have reason to believe my absence was... engineered. But I’m here now, and I’m not leaving.” His expression softened, “As for the promotion... actually, _all_ of you got promoted. Congratulations, Major Ackles.” Misha’s smile was bittersweet, and his eyes were filling with tears.

“You gonna tell me what happened?”

Misha and Katie exchanged a weary, knowing look that turned Jensen’s stomach. He didn’t need functioning telepathy to know the story wasn’t good.

“You know that whole turnabout scenario you discussed with Foalar?” Katie hedged.

“The talk about ORDA finding a solution to Markers?” 

Katie and Jensen both winced at Misha’s use of their assigned name. Clearly Katie hadn’t found time to sort out that bit of vocabulary.

“Yeah,” Jensen acknowledged reluctantly.

“Well, it’s here. It’s happened and it’s fully underway.”

And so Jensen learned about everything he’d misses while he was unconscious—dying—and relearned what had transpires in the hazy corners of his memory where thought was still obscured by pain and the fragments of memory wouldn’t quite come together.

Jensen was troubled when he learned about Mirakimi’s disappearance and distraught when he found out Gen. Ferris was still missing. But what rattled him the most was when he realized just how few of them had _escaped_. The base at ORDA HQ had once been 28% Naiian. That had changed in the past year* with lots of reshuffling happening while he and Misha were doing ambassadorial support and refugee services with Foalar and even more since their return to Earth. At first Jensen had assumed the shift was due to a mix of several factors—new bases offworld, diversification on Earth to respond to gaps in defense and services identified during the Licinian war, redistribution and absorption of General Lehne’s division, and—yes—open hostility toward Naiians. 

They’d made up a little over 9% of the base population before the shit hit the fan, and that was considering the population at headquarters had been reduced to roughly 8,000. And what? There were six of them— _six_ out of hundreds—crammed into an unoccupied college dorm suite and hanging on for dear life. 

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Katie tried to explain, prompting Jensen to glare at her and Misha to wince.

“Not as bad how?” Jensen asked, cringing at the squeak in his voice.

“Well, for starters, Abel made it out with a small team at the same time we did. They weren’t as sick as us, so they’re running faster and farther than we can right now. They’re going to try to make contact,” she reassured. “Second, those figures include people who’ve been missing long term—General Ferris, most of her senior staff other than Misha. Even Brigadier General Peleggi got recalled early and promptly vanished,” Katie began. 

“I’m not seeing how that makes it better. Those are people ORDA’s new leadership has apparently disappeared,” Misha protested, flopping forward in his seat, elbows resting on knees as he ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “Most of those are senior officers, command staff, people who potentially have a clue how to leverage us out of this mess!” He kicked at the nearest leg of Jensen’s bed and winced when the instep connected with a blunt-but-narrow corner. “Oww!”

“It’s not good. It just means the situation was already worse than we realized when this latest campaign started,” Katie explained, squeezing her elbows defensively. “There’re also still teams offworld. As long as they stay that way they’re probably safe.”

“But they’ve got to come back eventually,” Jensen pointed out. “Wasn’t Aldis offworld—granted my memory’s more tangled than a Kolorfian brandlegock’s tentacles, but I remember that.”

Misha and Katie shared another worried glance. “We couldn’t figure out a way to contact him,” Misha admitted.

“Well not safely. They’re tracking everything,” Katie added, “and until Jared broke us out, we had no way off base.”

Jensen’s eyes went wide as he found himself gaping in shock.

“Not, not our symbiotes directly—”

“We’re pretty sure they can’t figure out how to interface a tracer or tracker.” Misha shrugged. “It would seem our symbiotes have a lot in common with nanolumes in terms of tamper resistance.”

“At least they don’t self-destruct,” Katie retorted, scowling at Misha’s over generalization.

“Of course they don’t,” Jensen said before he realized what he was saying. It was intuitive, instinctual understanding.

Katie and Misha were both staring at him, so he verbalized his thoughts rather than marveling at the information he’d uncovered in his subconscious.

“They’re _symbiotes_. They may not be alive or sentient in the ways we commonly understand, but our connection to them is a two-way street. We get something from them, and they get something from us. Self-destruction would likely hurt or kill us either from, withdrawal—like almost happened to us—or by trapping us in a hostile location. The rogue Licinians who engineered our ancestors probably adapted nanolumes from a combination of their traits and the traits of their symbiotes—the self-destruct feature could even be some sort of evolved protection mechanism.” 

He was greeted with two blank stares. 

“Because it’s not good for us or the symbiotes if someone messes with nanolume DNA?”

“Oh,” Katie replied, jumping a little. “That actually makes sense. We know nanolumes replicate over time. The anti-tampering mechanisms could have been programmed in originally, or could have evolved over time... It’s fascinating, really. Given their hybrid nature the defense mechanism could be biological or software based. We may never know—especially since we can’t study them... Unless maybe they can sense that we’re related to them and trying to understand ourselves?” Katie was off and babbling in her own little world, starting to pace back and forth across the crowded room.

“Cassidy,” Misha said, getting her attention.

She froze and turned mid-stride, one hand raised to illustrate a point and her head cocked to the side.”

“Another time?” she half-asked, sitting back down at Misha’s gesture.

“You were saying they’re tracking us?” Jensen asked.

“The procedures we developed originally to track apertures. They’re using them—I know,” Katie admitted. “It’s exactly the kind of misuse we were afraid of.”

“We had to develop it for the war. We would have never found Kane, never tracked the Licinian insertion teams,” Jensen admitted, hoping it would take the guilty look off Katie’s face.

“We would have never found you,” Misha murmured, squeezing Jensen’s hand.

And oh... Something in Jensen’s chest loosened, and he realized he harbored the same guilt as Katie. Every useful tool could be misused. Knowledge wasn’t evil in itself. It was something he’d always believed and it bore repeating now—a philosophy to live by.

“ORDA’s also got trackers imbedded in all the human-made WMDs,” Misha continued. “We’re not sure if they’re hardware or software based—or both—so no one can chance using them.”

“Plus, ORDA could just track the apertures anyway. They’d know where we were and who we contacted,” Katie continued.

“And there’s a good chance they could follow anyone who then tried to run while they were offworld.” A flash of pain and revulsion crossed Misha’s face and he shuddered. “We knew Hodge would be in danger when he came back, especially after how you reacted, but we couldn’t figure out how to contact him without making things worse.” His gaze drifted towards the door and presumably to the other bedroom where Hodge was sleeping.

“They’ve got a drug that lets humans use their own WMDs,” Katie explained, hanging her head. “And we’re pretty sure there are—Markers—” she tripped over the word, “loyal to ORDA. People who want a ‘cure’ and will do anything to stay in their good graces to get it.”

Jensen frowned at Katie, knowing something she’d said was wrong, but it took him a moment to find it hiding in the jumble of his memory. “Naiians,” he said.

“What?” Misha asked, glancing at Katie in confusion.

But Katie’s eyes were locked on Jensen. “Your memory’s starting to come back,” she said with relief.

“Not all of it,” Jensen admitted, shrugging, or rather trying to shrug one shoulder—it was more of a slow twitch thanks to the muscle relaxants—”but I distinctly recall that we finally decided on a name for ourselves.”

“You two were naming—what? Our rebellion?” Misha said, in his Colonel voice, his face contorting into an expression he only made when thinking about the horrors of rule-breaking subordinates.

“Our _species_ ,” Jensen corrected, an exasperated “dumbass” implied in his tone. “Our people. Foalar pointed out how... problematic and unhealthy it was to go around calling ourselves a name imposed on us by our oppressors, especially since that name was inaccurate,” Jensen explained.

“And you... you two came up with Ni—”

“Naiian,” Katie corrected.

“It’s a sort of ‘Stargate’-related,” Jensen admitted sheepishly 

“After some character?” Misha asked.

“No,” Jensen reassured. “It’s just. We make wormholes.” He tried not to think about their current predicament or the possibility he could have a permanent neurotransmitter insensitivity that could make wormholes, and so much more, out of reach. “That’s one of the coolest things about us—arguably the most noticeable, right? And in ‘Stargate,’ wormholes look like puddles, water. And that made me think of mythology, which made me think of water nymphs, you know Naiads.”

“So, you want to call us, Nyans, like N-Y-A-N-S?” Misha asked sounding skeptical.

“No, N-A-I-I-A-N,” Katie corrected.

Misha looked puzzled.

“Katie,” Jensen prompted. After all she was the one who’d figured out their name was a lot more meaningful than he’d intended. 

“It’s for the Fropali word ‘aiiah,’ meaning the inherent freedom of all sapient beings for self-determination—most commonly transliterated as A-I-I-A-H—and...”

“And the Licinian word ‘nait’—meaning other,” Jensen finished. His eyes lingered on Katie before drifting to Misha. “If we’re defining ourselves, we might as well acknowledge—”

“I get it,” Misha nodded. “And I like it. It’s rooted in our heritage, but not strictly tied to Earth.” He sounded sad, and Jensen didn’t need to read his mind to understand why. The name was just one more sign of their split from ORDA, and ORDA had been a central part of Misha’s identity for longer than he and Jensen had been together. 

“The point is,” Jensen began. “There are more of us out there. We can’t just leave them.”

“But we can’t communicate with them, and we can’t go after them either,” Katie pointed out.

“They could run. They could open an aperture to a planet where humans can’t survive—” Jensen broke off, realizing what he was saying.

“And what? Leave the humans with them behind? Strand them? Take the humans on their team with them to an environment where they’ll die?” Katie exclaimed. “Jesus Christ Jensen, listen to yourself. Just because they’re human doesn’t mean they’re our enemy or they deserve to die.” The pain and fear in her voice made Jensen flash back to a conversation they’d had in an ORDA lab not long after they’d met. Using the combined harmonics of lab machinery to interfere with the security mics, Katie, then still human and dressed in a lab coat that all but sealed her fate and clearly established her lowly status in ORDA’s pecking order had shown Jensen the test results that unlocked the key to their origins and, ultimately, to saving Earth. 

_I changed her. I took her and helped her become like me. Violated orders and covered it up because I thought I was saving her life. Fuck!_ Katie could have been safe. She could have avoided experiencing symbiote withdrawal, she could have—

“No Jensen, no. Just whatever you’re thinking, no.” Katie was shaking her head emphatically, and Jensen slowly became aware of her hand on his shoulder. 

He didn’t understand what was happening. He hadn’t projected his thoughts, and they were all experiencing impaired telepathy, so he was pretty sure she couldn’t have pushed her way into his mind unnoticed. It was only then, when Misha produced a tissue out of somewhere and handed it to Jensen that Jensen realized he had been crying and wasn’t tracking very well. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” he stammered.

“I know.” Katie smiled and patted his shoulder. “I’m sorry for how I said that—it wasn’t my intent to make you feel bad. I know you don’t harbor those attitudes towards humans and I have never regretted for one moment that you gave me the choice, the chance to become who I am.” She looked Jensen directly in the eye and made sure he saw the full extent of her conviction. She meant it. She wasn’t holding anything back. “If I wasn’t Naiian, there’s a very good chance we would have lost Earth or lost you. Even if we hadn’t, ORDA could be making me torture you and other Naiians like you by hunting you down and stealing your symbiotes. If I refused and tried to cite the Hippocratic Oath, they’d disappear me, just like they could have done before. I may not be as safe as we’d hoped, but I’m no worse off.”

Jensen shot her a very skeptical look. Hadn’t she just gone through her own version of this horrible, disorienting, debilitating, spasm-filled hell?

“Symbiote withdrawal aside,” she added hastily. “But I probably would have died a painful death by now anyway, so I’m not complaining.”

“Even if we have officers out there who don’t have humans on their teams, ORDA still has loyalists who could track and capture them, even on a human inhospitable world,” Misha pointed out.

“Well what then?” Jensen demanded, not caring in the least that he was being grossly insubordinate on what was clearly a work matter. “‘Cause we can’t just leave them for ORDA to incapacitate torture and kill.”

“We’ve got some time,” Katie said. The weariness in her voice made Jensen feel guilty. Somehow she and Misha had found the time and energy to agonize about this, even while ill, and here he was throwing it back in their faces. “We hope to have a plan by the time it becomes necessary. If nothing else, by then we should be recovered enough to reach out telepathically and warn them as they arrive back on earth. If we’re diligent and ORDA sticks to the mission schedule, we should be able to contact them with enough time to react.”

“If ORDA changes the schedule, we’d either have to spend the whole time searching or get very lucky,” Misha added grimly. “But we’re confident ORDA doesn’t know enough about our abilities to realize the threat.”

Jensen supposed the plan was better than nothing. But if ORDA recalled anyone while he, Misha, Katie, and the others were still recovering, they’d have no way of knowing or warning their unsuspecting comrades. And acting on this plan might very well tip their hand and then ORDA would realize it had a bunch of powerful telepaths at its disposal. 

“The Fropali ambassador and her ship are due back in orbit in a few weeks. We might be able to play that to our advantage and warn some people that way,” Misha suggested. “That is if the Fropali will negotiate with us and not hand us over to ORDA.”

“They won’t,” Jensen insisted. He was aiming for reassuring, but judging by the twin expressions of alarm on Misha and Katie’s faces, he’d missed the mark. “Foalar has already recognized the sovereignty of our people and has promised to protect us,” Jensen explained.

“She what?” Misha stammered. He caught Jensen’s eye and sighed. “Of course she has.” He sounded almost resigned. “And how, exactly did she do that considering her ship has been out of the system since she dropped you off on Earth and we as a people or species or whatever didn’t have a name until you and Katie figured one out while I was offworld... which was after Ambassador Foalar left, and oh, we don’t have our own government or representatives to speak for us.”

“Don’t get all riled up, this is a good thing,” Jensen urged, slurring his words a little. “She’s the one who suggested we name ourselves. She offered recognition and support just as soon as I stopped trying to convince myself we were all unnatural aberrations that needed to be cured, and she recognized me as our people’s representative. If you’re worried, take it up with her. ‘S her fault.”

Misha seemed somewhat placated. “That’s another option then. And it’s important to remember there are still more of us on base here who are okay for now.”

The confusion must have shown in Jensen’s expression, because Katie jumped in and explained. 

“They’ve collected all our WMDs, but for everyone whose WMD was Earth-made, it’s just that—a device that makes wormholes. There’s no symbiotic relationship, no dependence, no risk.”

“They did this to us; you know what they’re planning—”

“No _immediate_ danger,” Misha clarified.

Jensen settled back against the thin mattress, only realizing he’d been struggling and straining up from the bed in protest until he had stopped, letting out a long breath and shaking with the effort. “We can’t just leave them.”

“But we couldn’t take them with us... Not now. Even if we could be 100% sure we were on the same page, the numbers were all wrong,” Katie explained.

Jensen frowned, trying to figure out what she meant.

“There were too few of us left on base to stage an overt rebellion and too many to escape clandestinely. We might have worked something out eventually, but...” Katie bit her lip.

“But you didn’t have that kind of time, Jensen,” Misha explained softly. “Neither did Katie or Hodge or Roberts for that matter. Without the ability to safely use wormholes, we lose most of our advantage. And all it would take is one—one Naiian who thinks like Kane did, and it’s all over.”

“Actually, remind me to tell you what we learned about Kane,” Katie interjected.

Misha looked at her quizzically.

Jensen mulled that sobering thought, he didn’t like it, but he couldn’t escape the conclusion either. “What about others like us, at other bases?”

“We, we don’t know if this was like a pilot program or if they deployed the same plan everywhere at once,” Katie admitted, her eyes downcast. “Information has been... hard to come by for a long time, since around the time you and Misha left on that mission with the Fropali ambassador, but it’s been pretty much nonexistent since Gen. Ferris disappeared.”

Katie blamed herself for not figuring out a solution, she felt guilty for every Naiian whose life was in jeopardy, who might suffer or die because she hadn’t acted sooner or devised a plan to stop ORDA’s plan. Jensen could see the guilt in her eyes and he knew it was reflected in his own.

“As soon as we’re recovered enough to use our telepathy, we can reach out and warn them. If the... attacks were concurrent, we’ll have to hope they wised up and figure out a way to escape on their own,” Katie concluded. 

No one bothered to suggest they had been attacked before. If they had been, word hadn’t reached the Naiians at ORDA headquarters, suggesting no one had survived, they were still incapacitated, or the survivors were untrained in telepathy and none had an instinctive grasp of their abilities enough to contact anyone, at least not over great differences.

“We’ll have to figure out a way to mask our wormholes or jam their tracking technology,” Jensen murmured. “We’ll never survive if we’re restricted to acting like humans.”

“We stand out too much,” Katie agreed.

“Even if we look like them the differences are easy to detect if you have the means and know what to look for,” Misha agreed, his gaze distant.

Jensen knew Misha was remembering their meeting with the Ecati. Recalling the deeply unsettling encounter, Jensen shuddered and turned his question back to the one unanswered question he really couldn’t ignore. “So how did we? Escape?” 

“We had help,” Misha said matter-of-factly.

_How could we risk..._ But the answer came to Jensen. Of course there was someone, rather someone’s they could trust.

A loud, rhythmic rapping at the door broke the silence in the room, causing Katie to flinch and Misha to stiffen.

Jensen spared a fleeting thought for the others in the next room, who Katie had yet to check on. “Is that the suite door, or this room?” he whispered, swallowing to stifle the rising panic. He didn’t even know the layout, how could he possibly defend himself?

But Katie and Misha weren’t listening, or paying any attention to Jensen’s question.

“That’s the signal,” Misha observed.

“Yes,” Katie replied. “I’ll check the outer door, sir. They’re five minutes ahead of schedule,” she added, consulting her wrist watch. 

Misha nodded, and Katie turned and left, without another word or a salute, shutting the door behind her with a barely audible click.

“Misha?” Jensen whispered.

“I said we had help,” Misha offered in explanation, leaning in to kiss Jensen on the lips.

Unexpected as it was, the kiss was exactly what Jensen needed and he melted into it, opening his mouth and taking everything Misha was offering. This close, they could ease into the connection between them, bypassing the strain and unpleasant side effects of lingering symbiote withdrawal, and just _feeling_ each other. It felt so right and familiar, Jensen could almost forget the muddled pain, memory loss, and paralysis, and feel... normal. Together, him and Misha joined the way they were supposed to be. 

“God, I missed you,” Misha whispered as he broke off the kiss. He laid his head against Jensen’s, cheek-to-cheek, his chin resting on Jensen’s shoulder, and his lips pressing gently against Jensen’s ear. Misha brought his left arm across Jensen’s body, squeezing him in a hug. “I thought I’d lost you, or made a call that was going to see you trapped for the rest of your life. Katie told me the panantipropenol wasn’t permanent, but I wasn’t sure I believed her, and I said yes anyway. I just wanted you to live, to have a chance, even if it meant we’d be cut off from each other. I—I loved you long before we realized we could live in each other’s minds...” Misha’s rambling apology trailed off.

Jensen could still hear his breathing, loud and shaky, their bodies moving together with each of Misha’s... sobs. And he was crying, Jensen could feel Misha’s tears, wet and slick against his ear, at the same moment he realized he was crying. They were crying—together.

“I’m right here,” Jensen started, his voice both too loud and too soft at the same time, seeming to reverberate in the silence, while melting into nothingness. He swallowed and tried again. “I’m here.” That was better. “I’m not going everywhere, and I am so glad you took that chance.” He tilted his head to kiss Misha’s jaw. “Thank you,” he added in a whisper, lifting a weak and heavy arm to hug Misha back.

Misha melted against him, all the tension leaving him. It was the permission he’d been looking for, Jensen realized, the signal that lowed Misha to stop being Col. Collins and just be Misha, Jensen’s husband. 

They stayed that way, holding each other, embracing and indulging in what mental contact they could manage. It felt like hours, but must have only been minutes, later when a rapping noise brought them out of the haze. The knocking happened again, and Jensen realized it was another code. This time on the door to their room. 

Misha sat up, brushing another kiss on Jensen’s lips along the way. He squeezed Jensen’s hand, wiped the tears first from Jensen’s eyes and then his own and said, “Enter.”

The door swung open and Katie entered followed by a harried looking Jared and hyper focused Genevieve, both of whom were laden down with bundles and gear. They were both in civilian clothes—Jared in a polo shirt and jeans with low-top athletic shoes; Genevieve in a somewhat casual grey pantsuit with the jacket unbuttoned over a knit top and paired with low-heeled boots. The juxtaposition was a little jarring, and Jensen spared a moment’s worry that they must have surely attracted attention. But then he remembered they were holed up on a dorm room, and probably could pass for two grad students coming back from a camping trip or prepping for fieldwork.

Jensen’s worry quickly gave way to relief and joy. Good. It was good that “help” was Jared _and_ Genevieve. It was good to have a human on their side. Better to know ORDA’s xenophobic, genocidal politics hadn’t racked up another casualty in the form of Jared’s marriage.

“Sorry, for the timing boss,” Jared began—whether he was referring to arriving early or interrupting Misha and Jared’s obviously tearful reunion was anybody’s guess. “But we’ve got a lot to report and not much time.”

“Can you be ready to leave?” Genevieve interjected.

Misha looked to Katie, who cocked her head. He nodded. “We can be. Dr. Cassidy just needs a few minutes to get her patients mobile.”

“Sir, if you can take care of Capt. Ackles, I can see to the others. Lt. Col. Harris is mobile and can help.”

“Very well,” Misha agreed, exchanging salutes with Katie. Turning his attention to Jared and Genevieve, he said, “Ok, debrief as we go.”

“Sir, how’s Jensen?” Jared asked, his tone unreadable. He might have been trying to change the subject or assess if Jensen was well enough to hear Jared’s report.

Jensen couldn’t tell, and either way, it didn’t bode well.

Misha squeezed Jensen’s hand. He didn’t speak for a moment, and Jensen could tell he was floundering, trying to determine if Jared was being insubordinate or trying to warn—or worse—prepare him. “We think...” he started at last, “Dr. Cassidy thinks he’s gonna pull through, and it’s looking like most of the damage done isn’t going to be permanent.” He ran his thumb rhythmically back and forth against the back of Jensen’s hand.

“I feel like shit, but I’m pretty sure I’m feeling better,” Jensen slurred, wrestling his lips into a weak approximation of a smile.

Jared cocked his head and shot Misha a questioning look.

“Muscle relaxants,” Misha answered the unspoken question. “Padalecki?” he prompted after a few moments when Jared still hadn’t said anything else.

Genevieve cleared her throat and ground one booted toe against the tile floor. Her gaze was fixed downward, and Jensen was having a hell of a time reading her body language. In all the years he’d known her, Jensen had never observed Genevieve act like this. She was usually unflappable, determined and persistent if pushed (and it took a _lot_ to get her to that point, good natured and confident. 

Her posture and behavior looked uncertain, different. It could have been respect for their chain of command in this unusual military context, but that made no sense. Genevieve had never deferred before, not since she’d learned the truth in the wake of Jared’s injury, and she and everyone else had known it was only a matter of time before ORDA officially rolled her into the ranks. 

Gen’s initial rule breaking and defiance coupled with near cataclysm followed by upheaval followed by uncertainty and reevaluation had delayed the process a lot. But even with the new regime, the last Jensen had heard—in an email not long after he’d been shipped back to Earth—Genevieve was in negotiations about her commission—trying to figure out if there was a practicable way to keep her job at Google as part of her cover. After all, Gen was human. Not even Gen. Lehne would have had a problem with her. He might not have liked her marriage to a Naiian, but the point was ORDA’s new guard was set to commission Genevieve as a Captain any day now, so deference didn’t shed light on her strange behavior.

Genevieve crossed her arms, and Jensen knew. She wasn’t hesitant; she was mad. Angry in a way Jensen had seldom seen anyone get.

“Boss,” Jared replied at last, and his voice quavered just a little. It was all Jensen needed to hear to know Jared’s report was gonna be bad. No one wanted to hear this, but they couldn’t afford to close their ears, either. “You’re not gonna like it,” Jared confirmed in a last-ditch effort to stall for time.

“How’d recon go?” Misha asked, tone neutral, settling back in the chair pulled up next to Jensen’s bed. He kept stroking Jensen’s wrist, Misha’s only concession to circumstance.

“We made it to your apartment, got in and out without detection as far as we can tell,” Jared answered.

The half-gasp had already left Jensen’s mouth before he realized he’d spoken. ORDA had their place under surveillance. Surely going there was a guaranteed way to tip their hand.

“Relax, Jenny,” Jared said affectionately. We went yesterday long before you folks busted out. On official business too. The boss put in official request for some personal items, spare uniforms, clothes and the like, and it was granted since he was temporarily confined to base and coming back from a long mission,” Jared explained. “Gen,” he hooked his thumb over his shoulder at his wife, “convinced the interim base commander—that’s a Brig. Gen. Adar, ostensibly in Gen. Bellman’s command—that it would be a good idea to retrieve some mementos and other items for you on compassionate grounds.”

Genevieve nodded in agreement. “Adar thought you were circling the drain—her words, not mine—saw me as a civilian and thought it was ‘understandable,’“ she added, complete with air quotes.

“We got in, checked for new bugs, put on an entertaining show for ORDA surveillance, and got out,” Jared added.

“And was there? Any new surveillance equipment?” Misha clarified.

“There was a new camera aimed at the balcony, no audio, and...” Jared faltered.

“And an audio recorder in the doorway to your bedroom. No camera,” Genevieve finished for him. She sighed hesitating, “And the transmitters were new. Someone swapped ‘em out since the last time I took a look at them.”

“Did they get anything?” Misha asked a little dumbfounded. He wasn’t surprised, not really, Jensen could tell. The shock in Misha’s voice was more along the lines of realizing their worst fears were realized, the other shoe they’d been expecting to drop for months if not years, had finally dropped. If Jared and Genevieve had unknowingly given something away, they were well and truly fucked.

“No,” Jared whispered, shaking his head; then more firmly, “No.”

“We played it like college drama improv,” Genevieve added. “We talked about the topics we’d cover, the moods and attitudes we should have, but we kept it unscripted so it would sound spontaneous. Jared played the dutiful officer concerned for his CO, but committed to following orders, while I was the more emotional friend, shocked at the lack of individualized sympathy that went into those orders.”

“Could they have gleaned anything? Did you do or say anything that might have tipped your hand about sympathies, our plans—do they know you checked the transmitters?” Misha questioned.

“It’s possible,” Genevieve said, shrugging and sending one of the bags slung over her shoulder inching towards the ground. “We tried to keep the banter mostly about finding things—’honey, do you know where Misha keeps his socks,’ that sort of thing. They would know I looked at the cameras in the living room, but ever since I got read in, I’ve been checking cameras every time I come home or go to another ORDA person’s home. I didn’t break pattern. I thought the transmitters looked different, and when I found the listening device in the bedroom, I took a closer look.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t on camera. Who knows. With the changes, could be new and different people are watching. They may not know us well enough for a comparison. Either way, we don’t have a lot of time, whatever they gleaned, they gleaned.

“We got your go bags, uniforms—including dress uniforms—trust me, you may need them,” Jared added, holding up a hand to stop Misha when he started to protest. “Cleaned out both safes, so we’re stocked on weapons, ammo, and cash—thank you for conveniently hiding those in the bedroom, boss, that sure made life easier,” Jared added.

“Also grabbed photos, keepsakes—your wedding album. Anything sentimental and portable that would fit with my story without tipping off Big Brother of your plans to flee.” Genevieve lifted the cushioned strap of a self-stowing duffle bag to Misha. “Civvies are in there. If you guys wanna get changed, we got a car waiting, but we really gotta go, and we still need a destination.”

Misha took the bag and set it on the bed next to Jensen, careful not to jostle him. Cocking one eyebrow skeptically, he asked, “So what’s all this about dress uniforms and no time. You pick up chatter out there I need to know?”

Genevieve and Jared shared another look. “Turns out the stakes are already a lot higher than we realized, and to give ourselves as much cover as possible, we had to put a time limit on our transportation. Wherever we’re going, we gotta get there and ditch the vehicle by noon, and it’s already,” Jared glanced at his watch, “nine fifty-seven right now.”

“Jen?” Misha asked, turning to Jensen, “You okay with getting changed?” His hands hovered over the pulls to the duffel bag’s u-shaped zipper.

Trying not to focus on how much moving would be involved, Jensen nodded, staring at Misha’s hands. “Yeah, I’m good.” Glancing up at Jared and Genevieve, he asked, “What’s the weather like outside?”

“Fifties, drizzling on and off with sunbreaks. More spring than summer.”

Jensen nodded. “Good, what am I wearing?” He paused, “Wait, how the hell am I getting out of here?”

“Sweats, t-shirt, jacket,” Jared said as Misha opened the bag and began unloading the items. “They’re all yours, just old, stuff you never wear so it’s unlikely to be recognized.”

Misha chuckled and held up a pair of baggy navy blue sweats. “I think you might have worn these in college.”

Jensen propped himself up as much as he could manage with noodly arms, squinting at the soft-looking garment with its fuzzy lining. “Law school,” he corrected. “It’s been a while, but not that long.”

Misha made a humming noise, and set the pants aside, pulling out his own clothes—jeans and a t-shirt, similar to what Jared and Genevieve were wearing. “At least this stuff’s pretty generic, so we won’t be spotted because we look like ‘blast-from-the-90s’ day,” he added.

Jensen recognized those jeans. They had blue paint splattered down one leg—a leftover from when Misha had helped him paint his sophomore dorm room.

“You’re welcome,” Genevieve teased, “and you can thank your husband for being a sentimental pack rat, or you’d probably be running out there naked.”

Jensen started to think they’d forgotten his earlier question, but Jared chimed in, “We’ve got a wheelchair for Jensen. Calm down boss, I’m not stupid,” he added, forestalling Misha’s protest. “It’s neither stolen, nor hospital property, nor newly purchased. Remember when I first started working for you, Genevieve had just had a bike accident?”

“Some idiot cut her off on the Burke-Gillman,” Jensen recalled. “You were pissed because Gen was hurt, and wanted to sue, and I said ‘I’m not that kind of lawyer.’“

“Yup,” Genevieve confirmed. “It would have been kind of difficult anyway seeing as the other cyclist was just some oblivious kid whose name I didn’t catch.”

“You broke your ankle and tore your ACL,” Jensen recalled.

Genevieve nodded. “And I sprained my shoulder, so my doctor wouldn’t let me use crutches. So, I got a cheap wheelchair. It’s collapsible and not particularly comfortable, but it’ll do the trick, and it will probably take ORDA a while to track it down, since the injury predates their involvement in our lives by about, oh, five hours. Something like that.” She opened another bag, pulled out something, green, white, and complicated looking, and tossed it to Misha. “That’s my old walking cast. Luckily Jensen isn’t a gigantor like Jared, so it should fit. If we’re lucky, Jensen looks like a college kid who had a bad fall, and not like an escapee.”

“That is awesome,” Jensen murmured, pleased with Genevieve’s quick thinking and ingenuity.

“How are our odds on that looking?” Misha asked as he efficiently stripped and began changing. 

Jensen was thankful for the brief reprieve. He wasn’t looking forward to the pain, awkwardness, and humiliation that would undoubtedly accompany his turn at getting dressed.

“Not so good,” Jared admitted. “Which is another big reason we’ve gotta run. Sorry, Jensen.”

“No offense taken,” Jensen answered, a guilty part of him worried he would slow them down, the rest of him knowing it wasn’t his fault.

“You’ve been gone almost 5 hours. The shift changes, first on base, and then in the hospital masked things for a while. Sounds like they were sure you were gone by 0700, but they bought Katie’s diversion,” Jared answered.

“Katie’s diversion?” Jensen queried, glancing up imploringly at Misha.

“Cassidy left a false trail, made it look like we were hiding out in the hospital,” Misha said, his voice muffled as he pulled the t-shirt over his head. “Since the UW Medical Center is a veritable rabbit warren that Katie knows like the back of her hand and has full privileges to and ORDA is still intent on not blowing everyone’s covers or revealing their true purpose to the outside world, we figured we could buy some time by sending them on a wild goose chase.” Misha huffed a little as he got his jeans zipped up and rammed his feet back into his boots. His hands were shaking, and the reminder of Misha’s own frailty and recent brush with death sent a chill coursing through Jensen.

It was so easy to get lost in the illusion. But this wasn’t a base hospital and no one had their backs. There would be no more requisitions or R&R stints. Just an uncertain future, the fate of an entire people, a war on every front, and far too much responsibility foisted upon their shoulders.

“The distraction worked, except at 0700, they finished a room-by-room sweep of the hospital and realized y’all weren’t holed up somewhere inside.,” Jared answered, his accent slipping a little. 

“Around the same time, they discovered you’d taken back your symbiotes,” Genevieve added.

“And that spawned a flurry of checking and double-checking the tracking data to convince themselves you hadn’t gotten stupid and grabbed a nicely trackable aperture out of here,” Jared continued. He cocked his head, focusing on Jensen. “It’s a long story, but there were stunned and restrained guards, falsified logs, and some really awesome coding courtesy of Gen that bought us that time.” 

From some people Jared’s statement would have been a threat or a slap in the face to remind Jensen of what and who he owed for his life, but not with Jared. It was his way of conveying the bare necessities with a promise the details would be forthcoming as soon as was practicable.

“They did a more advanced scan of the base and hospital that concluded at 0830, and at 0900, they put the base on full lockdown and began recalling troops,” Jared concluded.

“You’ve been recalled,” Misha observed. It was a statement, not a question. 

“Yeah, boss, but you’ve gotta know by now there’s no way in hell I’ll follow that order and abandon you. Even if _you_ order me to. It’s only a matter of time before all of us are in danger, if we’re not already there. I’d rather be insubordinate than dead or corrupted in someone’s sick xenophobic crusade.”

Silence hung in the space between Jared and Misha, their eyes locked as both officers grappled with the reality of the situation. Anything they did now, they would be branded as traitors at worst, sick individuals in need of confinement and cure at best. Jared could go back inside, but he might never have another chance to escape. (Of course, if that was the case, they were pretty much doomed anyway, because that would probably mean they wouldn’t have a chance to get anyone else out, and that could very well mean the end of the Naiians as a people.

“Okay,” Misha said, giving Jared a curt nod. 

Beside Jared, Genevieve relaxed, her body losing it unnatural stiffness. “It’s been almost 40 minutes since Jared got the call. They were expecting him to take a little time packing, but if we don’t get out of here soon, his face is gonna join the rest of yours as public enemy number one, and it’s gonna be that much harder to leave.”

“Not to mention they’re smart enough to come up with an excuse to justify locking down the entire campus if they have to,” Jensen observed bitterly.

“Forget the campus,” Jared, scoffed.

As Misha said, “They won’t stop there. They’ll shut down the entire U District, the city, county, whatever they feel necessary.”

Meeting Genevieve’s bewilderment, they scrambled to explain. 

“Remember the Occupy Seattle protests that got all the transit and roads and bridges shut down?” Jared asked.

“Or the WTO protests for that matter?” Misha added.

“I always thought ORDA might have had something to do with that, but I wasn’t in the organization then, so I wasn’t sure,” Jared commented in fascinated amusement.

“What can I say, ORDA’s always been good at manipulating sentiments and reactions to meet their devices,” Misha said with a shrug.

“That was all you?” Genevieve stammered, her mouth comically wide, one of her many bags, sliding from her fingertips and smacking against the floor with a solid “thunk.” “Are you saying you... created that?”

“Not created.” Misha shook his head.

“More like exploited, and the made sure the necessary events occurred to trigger certain reactions, or justify what ORDA had in mind. Kinda like what some police forces have done with planting rioters in otherwise peaceful protests,” Jared clarified.

“Except a lot of times those cops were actually ORDA or DHS, or DHS acting on ORDA’s orders,” Jensen muttered.

That earned him surprised glances from Jared and Misha. 

“What? I’m not oblivious, you know. And I’ve been on the inside for over a year. All the conspiracy theories make a lot more sense when you realize there’s actually an organization out there with the means, motive, and opportunity to pull all this shit off.” Jensen sighed, “So if they’re about to lock down the entire city like a giant mousetrap, what the fuck are we going to do to escape?”

“Well, you can start by letting me help you with these,” Misha said holding up Jensen’s clothes, “while Padalecki tells us what they cooked up to bust us out.”

Jensen wrinkled his nose, but quickly acceded. “Yeah, okay.” 

Misha reached over to help him sit up—an awkward move without a hospital bed—and held Jensen close. A split second of strong, sure arms wrapped securely around Jensen’s back, the familiar smell and feel of Misha’s soft, warn t-shirt; the flutter of Misha’s abs against his cheek. For a moment, everything was normal, and Jensen felt insanely confident everything would be all right. Misha pulled back and met Jensen’s eyes.

Jensen nodded.

And like that, a switch was flipped and the room surged out of slow motion into fast forward. Whatever hesitance Jared and Genevieve had been holding onto, it was now gone.

“We’ve got a minivan. Seven passenger, so it will be a tight fit, but it’s inconspicuous, innocuous—” Jared started.

“—And should be difficult to trace to us, at least not immediately,” Genevieve continued. “It’s a rental.”

Misha paused in the middle of pulling Jensen’s t-shirt over his head. 

Jensen couldn’t see what was happening, but he knew from experience Misha was shooting Genevieve a truly unpleasant, piercing glare.

“I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not like we could use any of our own vehicles without painting a target on our backs, and buying a car would be suspicious no matter how we arranged it.”

Jensen shuddered at the thought, doing his best to wriggle the rest of the way into his t-shirt. Financing would be obvious and procuring enough cash to purchase even a cheap, used car would draw attention. Sure, they all had cash reserves stashed in go bags and other strategic hiding places, but spending a chunk of their limited funding on temporary transportation that was easy to stop, track, and contain, would be suicide.

“The rental’s in the name of a friend’s sister. Not a close friend. A work friend from my previous job. We stay in touch, and she was around when Jared first got inducted into ORDA, so had some prior awareness of the dangers of Jared’s job.”

“What angle did you play?” Misha asked, a razor’s edge of wariness coloring his voice.

“I told her I’d recently found out Jared had been working for the CIA, and things went...” she stole a glance at Jared, “sideways. We thought his life was in danger and someone from his past was trying to frame him, but we didn’t know who, so we didn’t know who to trust,” Genevieve explained.

“And they bought it?” Jensen asked, surprised, as Misha wrestled his lifeless legs into the old, faded sweatpants.

Genevieve nodded. “My friend Cathy actually said it made a lot of sense what with Jared’s frequent travel and history of injuries.” She sighed. “I said we were worried about someone tracing my connection to her, so she suggested we use her sister. Her sister agreed, and to cover her ass, she’s going to report the rental as stolen at noon.”

“Which is why that’s our time limit,” Misha observed.

Genevieve nodded. 

“Wouldn’t it just be easier to leave it somewhere for her to pick up?” Jensen wondered aloud.

“It’s dangerous any way we try it. We picked up the minivan at a park on the Eastside. No security cameras, no traffic cameras for 2 miles, and we disabled the OnStar and GPS to make it harder to track. We’ve actually got dummy plates on the car, to make it that much harder to track, and Gen is going to ditch it in the parking garage at Northgate.”

“After I wipe it down,” Genevieve added.

“I can’t ask you to do that,” Misha said to Genevieve. He held up the air cast and Jensen’s shoes. “Shoes then cast, Jensen.”

Jensen groaned. “I’m gonna feel like an idiot,” he sighed. 

“Yeah, but you’re alive to feel,” Misha whispered as he started adjusting the cast around Jensen’s ankle.

A profound sense of foolishness swept over Jensen, making him blush from toes to ears.

“You’re not asking, I’m offering. Reporting the car as stolen gets the local police involved. That means a pissing match with ORDA, which, if nothing else, buys us some time. I have to be the one to ditch the car. By the then they’re going to have an APB out on the rest of you, even Jared. I’m the only one who might slip through. I’ve got 2 changes of clothes—hoodie and torn jeans for the drop-off, and a suit and heels for my exit. I’ll change in the bathroom and keep my face away from the cameras. From there I can bus or train hop to cover my tracks and meet up with you guys wherever we’ve decided to lay low. Paying cash. It’ll be hard to track. Leaving from a transit center like that at lunch time, I’ll blend in.” Genevieve leveled a steady gaze at Misha, unblinking. 

“Ok, you’ve made your case. We still have to figure out where we’re going before we’re stuck here.”

The answer hit Jensen like a slap in the face. Later on he’d be embarrassed for not thinking of it sooner, worrying that he almost forgot those of them who weren’t already sucked into this mess. What if he’d forgotten? But in that moment, the solution felt warm, sure, filled with perfect clarity. “Alona’s. We need to go to Nicki and Alona’s,” he blurted.

Three heads swiveled towards him in perfect unison. 

“I’m not endangering civilians,” Misha started as Jared asked, “Your old boss’s house?”

Jensen wanted to curse the damn lingering side effects! He’d grown accustomed to not having to explain. Under normal circumstances he could _share_ his reasoning and save them time. Time they didn’t have. Instead he found himself running his hands through his hair in frustration, and straining with the effort to raise his voice to be heard, as Jared and Misha launched off in a debate about the relative risks and merits of involving outsiders.

“They’re not civilians!” Jensen shouted, cutting them both off.

Misha’s head whirled around in confusion, Jared’s jaw closed with an audible clack, and Genevieve said, “Excuse me?”

“Nicki’s like us. She’s a Naiian,” he explained. “And Alona...” Jensen hesitated, unsure about owning up to what he’d done. The decision made so long ago when the balance of considerations was dramatically different. “Alona’s a Naiian now too. I gave her... and I told her if she felt threatened, if ORDA ever contacted her, she should touch it.”

Misha’s eyes were wide, regarding Jensen with a blend of warmth and sorrow. 

“I thought she’d be safer. She’d get to stay with Nicki, and they wouldn’t kill her,” he protested feebly. Jensen expected the others to scold him, blame him for bringing more people into this mess, exposing them to a world once full of promise and light, now shaded in pain and tragedy. “Alona was already on ORDA’s radar for inquiring about me after I... disappeared. They’re both Naiians now,” he had no doubt Alona would have exposed herself to the nanolumes by now. Enough profoundly weird stuff had happened since then to guarantee it. “Sooner or later the new administration is going to come after them. They need to know what’s going on, and they deserve the opportunity to fight back.”

“But—” Genevieve started.

“They won’t turn us away. Not even if we show up on their doorstep unannounced with casualties and the cavalry hot on our heels.” Jensen held firm. He would have crossed his arms defiantly if his muscles hadn’t felt like Jell-O.

Misha stilled, thinking. Jensen could see the protests on the tip of Misha’s tongue, but each time Misha go close to voicing one of his objections, he tipped his head to the side and dismissed the thought. “How do we get there without attracting attention?” Misha asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“They’re on a quiet street in Wallingford, about halfway down the hill. There aren’t many people around during the day, and they’ve got an alley behind their house that their garage connects to. If we pull up and unload, we can be in and out before anyone notices,” Jensen reasoned.

“And if they’re not home, which, considering it’s a Wednesday morning and they’re both lawyers, is pretty likely? What then are we supposed to hide in the bushes?”

“I can get us in.” He wasn’t boasting. Alona had told him where to find the spare key a while ago. Even if they’d changed the hiding place, he could always break into the garage.

“What do you think?” Misha asked Genevieve and Jared.

“It’s close,” Jared hedged.

“Maybe too close,” Genevieve observed, “but I’d have no problem getting the van dropped off and getting back quickly.”

“It’s outside the immediate quarantine and cordon area,” Jared added with a shrug.

“If they’re on ORDA’s radar, doesn’t that suggest ORDA will come looking for _us_ there?” Genevieve wondered.

“Maybe, maybe not. I’m not suggesting this long term, just as a pit stop, somewhere to regroup and fill them in on what’s happening so they don’t get trapped,” Jensen explained. “If ORDA comes looking for us, we can all bug out together. Besides,” Jensen turned his head, blushing in embarrassment, “I haven’t had any contact with them, as far as ORDA knows, since I got read into the program.”

“What did you do?” Misha asked, his tone suggesting he really didn’t want to know.

“It fell under our personal don’t ask, don’t tell policy, and ORDA wasn’t tracking wormholes then,” Jensen said, finally meeting Misha’s eyes. “I’m sure.”

Misha nodded his assent, but anything else he might have said was cut off by a loud rap on the door.

“That’s Dr. Cassidy,” Jared confirmed, opening the door.

A moment later, Katie popped her head in. “Are we ready?” she asked, sliding into the room and leaving the door open behind her. 

For the first time since he’d awakened, Jensen could see their fellow fugitives. Harris, Roberts, and Hodge—Aldis—were standing behind Katie in a long hallway that stretched on behind them. They looked bedraggled and not much healthier than Jensen felt. They too were out of uniform, an incongruity that messed with Jensen’s sense of reality. Of the three of them Major Harris—no that must be Lieutenant Colonel now, for whatever their ranks were worth in this brave new world—looked healthiest. She was clearly tired, dark shadows under her eyes, hollow cheeks, and general pallor, not quite concealed with makeup. She was wearing a pink knit hat, a striped skinny scarf, and a maroon jacket over jeans and hiking boots. Aside from the jeans and boots, the clothes looked brand new, and given what Jensen knew about Danneel Harris, he was willing to bet they were either new, or possibly gifts she’d never worn given by people who didn’t know her very well. It was a good disguise too. Anyone who saw her would focus on her clothes, and what they remembered wouldn’t jibe with ORDA’s search parameters. 

Aldis and Roberts were dressed less gaudily, both in college sweatshirts from schools he knew they’d never attended. Given their relative youth, they fit the part of two college students recovering from a particularly bad bender. Aldis’ face looked jaundiced, sallow, and bloodless, his darker complexion bleached out. Roberts looked green, and her hair was damp like she’d just stepped out of a shower, or perhaps shoved her head under a faucet. He could see the ends of her sloppy braid dripping moisture on the shoulder of her sweatshirt. Katie was shooting her wary sideways glances too. Roberts was bracing herself against the wall with one arm, while Aldis clung to the other. Neither looked particularly steady on their feet.

“We’re ready,” Misha confirmed, shooting Jensen a quick glance.

“Got a location, Colonel?” Harris asked, straightening up, in a vague semblance of standing at attention.

“One that will work for now,” Misha confirmed. “But the timing is going to be very tight.”

Harris acknowledged with a quick salute.

“How are we working loading and cleanup?” Misha asked, directing the appeal to Jared, Genevieve, and Katie, which Jensen supposed made sense considering they’d spent a good deal of time talking before meeting with Jensen and Misha. 

“I’ve got the rest of our gear packed and ready to go. Colonel Harris and I wiped down the other bedroom, bathroom, and common areas,” Katie replied, holding up a jug of bleach. 

Jensen noticed she and Harris were both wearing gloves.

“If we can get Jensen mobile, we can finish this room in a few minutes,” Katie continued, nodding to Harris, who stepped aside, revealing the folding wheelchair Genevieve had mentioned. 

It was nothing fancy, just a lightly padded blue seat and matching canvass backing slung between sides of an aluminum frame. The wheels were thin and covered in worn greyish green tires. The hand rails were scuffed, but slippery looking; Jensen wouldn’t want to try wheeling himself around for long without good gloves. Rickety-looking foot rests and rubberized blue push handles completed the wheelchair.

It simultaneously filled Jensen with relief and dread. 

Relief because the chair represented freedom and mobility even in his current incapacitated state. The ever-present threat of recapture, of having his symbiote stolen away again, of being locked up and experimented on, of losing his sense of self, had been weighing on Jensen without his realizing it. He knew what ORDA was capable of. He’d been kidnapped by his own CO, drugged, and held in a sub-freezing cell so scientists employed by a member of the Governing Council could slice open his brain and see what made it tick... and that was before the latest batch of xenophobic lunatics had taken over. He had no illusions about the depths of cruelty and torture they could—and would—-plumb. He felt like a trapped rat, or a bug on a sunny day being chased by a vindictive genius child with a magnifying glass. Now at least he had a means to get away.

Dread because he was woefully unprepared to function in his current state. Yes, some of his feelings of helplessness were directly tied to the massive dose of muscle relaxants Katie’d had to administer to get his muscle spasms under control. When the drugs wore off he’d feel better. But the rest of it, the deep-seated dread that sat like an icy stone behind his heart, threatening to choke him if he moved too fast or breathed too deep, that was something else entirely. Thanks to his Naiian gifts, he’d been able to bounce back from a life-threatening, normally disabling injury with nary a side effect. If he ignored the superficial numbness, on a good day he could forget it had ever happened. But the gifts that let him function “normally,” when deactivated left him uniquely vulnerable. If Jensen were human and a paraplegic, he would have trained to adapt to his body and learn new ways of completing tasks. He would have had therapy and tools, and he would have adapted. Almost a year post-injury, he probably would have been pretty proficient, too. But instead he was as weak and clueless as if he’d just been shot. He didn’t know what muscles to use to compensate for the muscles that could no longer respond. He had no tools to make his daily life easier; he didn’t even know how to transfer into the wheelchair waiting for him. 

His memory flashed to Katie helping him with the bathroom. It was a flash of what had happened during the gaping holes in his memory. It had been embarrassing, humiliating even, because he hadn’t known what to expect. Katie had assured him he’d been through it before, when he was first injured.

There were advantages, he knew, and he was immensely grateful. As long as his Naiian gifts were functioning, he didn’t need to worry about muscle atrophy, pressure sores, digestive difficulties, bladder infections, bowel problems, or any of a host of other medical problems and complications. But that knowledge did nothing to diminish the overwhelming sense of vulnerability and helplessness he experienced when confronted with the full extent of his disability. And he resented his heritage, just a little, when he thought about how much better prepared he would have been if he were human. 

_If you were human, you wouldn’t be waiting for the effects to wear off_ , said a voice in his head that sounded annoyingly like his conscience.

“Look, Jared’s going to pull the van up on Brooklyn and load up Aldis and Emma there. He’ll swing around and cut in on Cowlitz—that’s the little street back behind this building on the other side of the Burke Gillman—Colonel, you, Dr. Cassidy, and Colonel Harris can load up there after you’re done cleaning. I’ll stay with Jensen and wheel him out to the other end of the complex. Jared will pick us up last on Adams,” Genevieve volunteered, cutting through Jensen’s introspection.

“I’ll stay with Jensen,” Misha insisted.

“Boss,” Jared cut in, his voice and expression solemn. “You can’t. They’re already looking for you. You and Jensen together will fit right into their search parameters.”

“Then Katie—”

Misha’s use of her given name rather than her rank or title was telling.

“They’re looking for her to, and Colonel Harris,” Jensen surmised. “You two are the three healthiest. They’re expecting Aldis and Lt.—sorry— _Captain_ Roberts to be too sick to move or—” he swallowed hard the admission tasting bitter and metallic, “or dead.”

“Then we shouldn’t be seen together,” Misha said almost pleading, a shaky hand running through his hair at Jensen’s mention of death.”

“Colonel,” Katie said softly, “the Major’s right. And you know it. Otherwise you’d have issued an order instead of bargaining with your subordinates.”

Misha flinched.

“We can make it through the trees that line the bike path and out to the street. We can avoid being seen at all. ORDA Command isn’t looking for Genevieve, and they won’t expect her with Jensen, and they don’t even know Jensen is breathing on his own,” Katie reasoned gently.

Well, that confirmed the reason for the miserable scratchiness of Jensen’s throat.

“This can work. It’s our best shot, and we have to take it,” Katie concluded.

Still Misha hesitated. 

“Katie’s right,” he whispered.

A slow nod was the only acknowledgment Misha provided, but it was all any of them needed to see.

“Why don’t we step out into the hall, give you guys some space,” Genevieve suggested, moving towards the door. “Jared can go get the car and load up the Captains.”

It was going to take time for Jensen to get used to hearing that rank and remembering it didn’t refer to him; then again, he doubted they’d have much use for rank on the run. He gave a mental shrug. Or maybe the familiarity and normalcy would be the only thing keeping them going. 

When everyone had filed out, Jensen was once again alone in the room with Misha and Katie. Some of the gear was still there and he could hear the low murmur of voices as Genevieve and Harris talked outside the door, so it didn’t quite feel like déjà vu.

Jensen’s eyes swept around the room before landing on the wheelchair again, sending phantom pangs of dread and relief creeping up his spine.

“Let me unhook your IV for the trip, and then Misha can help with the transfer,” Katie murmured, sweeping in beside Jensen and unscrewing the lines as she spoke. The butterfly needle stayed firmly planted in the back of his hand, a promise of what was to come. 

Jensen made a conscious effort to remember to conceal the taped side of the hand on his way out. The last thing they needed was a bystander latching onto memorable details and repeating them to ORDA. Unmemorable, invisible, just another kid who had too much fun.

“Okay,” Katie said, her voice coming from farther away, jolting Jensen’s attention.

He hadn’t noticed her leaving his side.

She was standing a few feet away with the chair at the ready, giving room for Misha to slide in beside Jensen. “Jensen, it’s okay if you’re having trouble tracking,” she reassured.

His vision had gone all fuzzy again. Jensen was exhausted, the effort of staying awake and absorbing the details of their escape had burned through what meager energy reserves he had left.

“I just need you to stay awake and focus for a few more minutes. Just until you’re in the car. Then you can sleep. I promise. If we need you for anything else, we’ll wake you up.”

“‘Kay,” Jensen slurred.

“Colonel,” Katie prompted, but it sounded like she was talking to him at the bottom of a well.

The next few minutes blurred together. Misha’s warm hands and warmer body scooped Jensen up from the bed, cradling him. It was a few moments of unadulterated bliss, and then Jensen was settled into the wheelchair, feeling like he might topple out at any moment. He was a torso, a partial torso, suspended in midair, his shoulders, scapulae, and two-thirds of the right side of his back were the only bits alerting him to the chair’s presence. It was weird. He might have said so out loud, because Katie agreed with him. 

He sat there, drifting off and wishing the damn chair had a head rest because he was so exhausted (and floppy, thanks to the drugs) his head kept sinking forwards towards his chest. At one point Katie came over and helped him straighten up, while she conferred with Genevieve in soft tones, telling her to keep an eye on Jensen and make sure he didn’t fall out.

Eyes closed, Jensen drifted, taking in the room with his other senses, cataloguing and quantifying they data to keep himself calm.

He could hear people talking. Harris was back in the room too. Rustling of sheets, the rhythmic, scrubbing squeak of boots on tile punctuated with the occasional scrape of moving furniture. The noxious tang of bleach and the acidity of vinegar assaulted his nostrils, tingling and burning in the poorly ventilated space. Someone cracked a window—the same window he’d noticed when he first regained consciousness—and he could hear traffic and happy voices—the whir of bicycle tires, the occasional honk and squealing brakes, happy playful voices of people playing what sounded like Frisbee—probably ignoring the spring-like weather in favor of celebrating the approaching close of the semester and the calendar start of summer.

Bags rustled, the door opened and closed, and then Misha was with hike again, stroking his hair and coaxing Jensen to open his eyes.

Jensen complied, lashes fluttering, and stares into perfect, unending blue.

“Hey,” Misha said again when Jensen’s eyes were open. I’ve got to go now. Jared’s waiting for us. Just—” he reached out from where he was crouched in front of Jensen, kneeling on one knee, and squeezed his right hand, the one that didn’t have an IV port in it.”—Just stay here with Genevieve, okay? She’ll take care of you. Roberts will text when we’re ready. Tell her if you need anything, and hold on; we’ll be back together soon.” Then Misha was kissing him, all lips and tongue, navigating Jensen’s mouth with expert precision as his hands cupped Jensen’s face. 

Jensen let out a needy, little moan as Misha nibbled on his lower lip and sucked, the moan shifting to whine, and then to panicky gasp as Misha pulled away, breaking contact. He was still caressing Jensen’s face, but it wasn’t the same. “Stay safe,” Misha commanded, pressing a chaste kiss to Jensen’s lips, putting all his love into his eyes, and then he stood and strode out the door, Katie and Harris going with him, the mask of Colonel once again firmly in place.

And Jensen was alone with Genevieve.

She stood next to him in silence, eyes distant, searching for something on the other side of the door, one hand resting on Jensen’s right shoulder.

Swallowing and carefully wetting his lips, Jensen said, “Thank you.” A statement so inadequate he blushed when he said it. 

Genevieve smiled, looking down at Jensen with more confidence and determination than he could muster. “It’s gonna work out,” she said, and Jensen could tell she believed it.

Getting encouragement from Genevieve of all people just felt so wrong. “How can you be so sure? With everything that’s happened, everything you know, everything you’ve seen?”

“Because we’re on the side of right. We’re fighting for freedom and survival.”

“We have more to lose,” Jensen said neutrally.

“We have more motivation to keep fighting. Survival always wins out.” Genevieve’s gaze burned Jensen’s skin her conviction was so strong.

“Gen, I’m sorry you got dragged into this. I feel like it’s my fault,” Jensen admitted.

“You’re not the one who decided intolerance and human purity were more important that freedom and equality or that mass murder was an okay way to achieve your goals,” she answered.

Jensen reflected, knowing it was true, but unable to let go of his guilt so easily.

Genevieve’s phone buzzed. “We’re on,” she said after casting a quick glance at the display.

Jensen’s heart raced as adrenaline surged through his veins. “Okay.”

Genevieve pulled open the door and pushed him out into the hallway. “Let me know if anything’s wrong or _feels_ wrong,” she pleaded.

“Hate to disappoint, but my spidey senses aren’t exactly functioning,” Jensen replied.

“Hey, I’m not asking for anything special. Good old-fashioned gut instinct, observation, and intuition will do just fine,” she said leaning over and smiling.

“I’ll try,” Jensen promised, perking up as Genevieve pushed him through the apartment proper, past more bedrooms and the kitchen and living area. He was surprised to see signs of habitation—books spread on the coffee table, dishes stacked in the drying rack, and a glass bowl on the dining table. From Katie’s behavior, he’d assumed they were squatting in an empty apartment.

“One of the student researchers who works on some Enviropreserve’s legitimate projects lives here,” Genevieve said, in response to Jensen’s curiosity. “His roommates have mostly moved out already, but he’s still here finishing finals. We’re trying to keep him out of this as much as possible, so we’re trying to cover our tracks.”

“Hmm,” Jensen murmured in acknowledgment. ORDA would probably find something anyway. They always did. Had to appreciate how damn thorough they could be. “I hope he gets out of this okay.”

Genevieve got them out the door and into the parking lot without further incident. One of the advantages of a ground floor unit. They were spared the precarious indignity of maneuvering a wheelchair down steps. Jensen breathed easier when they rolled out into the crisp fresh air, smiling up at the sky as he felt the sun warming him. Bright orange sun, peeking around puffy clouds greeted his upturned face—a late morning sunbreak. Jensen couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the sun—Earth’s or any other. It had been weeks since he’d been outside, and from the sound of it, it could be weeks or more before he saw it again. Being on the run wasn’t exactly conducive to spending time outdoors. Sure, if they refrained from traveling via wormhole they could stay out of ORDA’s sophisticated tracking network, but that didn’t mean ORDA couldn’t (or wouldn’t) resort to the tools of ordinary military and intelligence agencies to locate its fugitives. And there were always plenty of surveillance cameras and spy satellites around. So, Jensen ignored the slight chill and enjoyed it while he could.

They moved casually, Genevieve talking about the weather and traffic and whatever other meaningless chitchat she came up with to enhance the illusion. Jensen murmured nonsense back in all the right places, and remembered to smile and fake a few laughs, all the while watching out of the corner of his eye.

Was it possible he had ever been that carefree? People all around them were going about their lives oblivious to the lies and deception around them. _No_ , he realized. He’d always been perceptive, and where perception hadn’t helped, his vivid, overactive imagination had filled in. Besides, “social justice lawyering,” the umbrella term for Jensen’s former occupation, was the kind of job that inevitably exposed one to the hidden eddies and undercurrents of reality.

Still, it was a big difference between what Jensen had known and imagined then, and the reality he existed in now. To the happy college students playing Ultimate Frisbee in the parking lot and riding their bikes on the Burke-Gillman, Jensen’s reality was a far-fetched fiction.

They were two-thirds of the way across the parking lot when it happened. The apartment they’d holed up in was part of a multi-building campus housing complex, and the apartment was in the far end of the farthest building from the side street Jared was using to pick them up, so there was a lot of distance to cover. Jensen noticed it first in the changes in the behavior of those around them. A biker who suddenly slowed and looked over her shoulder; the kid who dropped the Frisbee despite it being an easy catch; the passersby chatting on their cell phones whose pitch and volume changed as they turned their heads to stare—all of them stopping, turning, and staring, but not at Jensen and Genevieve, but at something in the opposite direction.

_Back towards ORDA._

_Thump, thwack, thump, thwack..._

“Is that—” Genevieve asked. 

As Jensen murmured, “Oh _fuck_!” The bottom fell out of his stomach as his heart leapt into his throat. Jensen would know that sound anywhere. 

Genevieve kept walking, pushing him along. 

Then the sirens started; the sound and direction distorted by trees, buildings, and water, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. 

Neither Jensen nor Genevieve could ignore that, and their heads turned in unison towards the general direction of the loudest sirens. 

Police cars of all descriptions were screaming up Pacific. In between the complex’s buildings, Jensen could make out two Seattle PD cruisers—the sporty new Dodge Charger ones that looked like they could chase you down and win—turning sideways to block off traffic in both directions. More cars were coming, University Police, King County Sheriff’s Department, FPS SUVs, unmarked black sedans and SUVs that could have belonged to any of the Federal three-letter agencies, and they were all hemorrhaging officers into the street as they stopped. And above it all was the distinctive shape of an ORDA chopper. In the distance Jensen could see two more sleek black silhouettes approaching and a forth hovering somewhere in the vicinity of Red Square. 

“Keep walking,” Jensen murmured, his voice slipping into that lower register, filled with a gritty edge he had picked up in combat. 

“Gotcha,” Genevieve said, her voice equally quiet, the pause and slightly lost sound the only reminder she hadn’t been through the same combat training as the rest of them. “They coming for us?” She asked as she resumed pushing Jensen’s chair, the repetitive squeak of the right wheel suddenly drawing Jensen’s attention. 

“No,” Jensen replied, shaking himself. He knew his perception of the wheel’s loudness was distorted, his perception amplified by the circumstances. “They’re setting up a perimeter, probably gearing up for a door-to-door search, going by the manpower they’re fielding.” He looked again, a little in awe of what he was seeing, despite knowing it just emphasized how fucked they all were. “Wonder what the hell cover story they’re spinning to get that kind of cooperation,” he added, talking to himself. 

The wheel squeaked loudly again, and Genevieve cringed, her grip on the wheelchair tightening so much Jensen almost bounced in the seat. 

He white-knuckled the armrests to avoid sliding out onto the pavement. “Don’t,” he cautioned, his voice still quiet, but more relaxed. Gen needed reassurance and guidance, which meant Jensen had to keep his head. “It’s not that loud. It’s our perception. Even if it was loud there are far more distracting sights and sounds, noticing the wheel just draws attention to us.”

Genevieve started walking a little faster, and the swishing sound of her ponytail told him she’d whipped her head around. 

“It’s okay to look, everybody’s looking,” he reassured. 

“What if they—” 

“ORDA’s not on the ground here yet,” he cut her off, talking without his lips moving. “Don’t stare, don’t rush, and you won’t draw attention to us.” 

“But everyone else is stopping or moving towards them,” she protested, her voice rising and showing a hint of panic.

“Not anymore,” Jensen said, smiling in relief as he saw a group of bicyclists who had stopped start riding again. “Some people are rubbernecking, but the rest just want out of here.” He glanced up at Genevieve and smiled. “No one wants to be trapped or detained by the cops.” 

“What about them?” she asked, pointing with her chin towards a group of pedestrians along Pacific who were being approached by two agents in suits whose windbreakers and vests declared them to be FBI. The agents were getting more confrontational, holding up hands, one reaching towards something one of the pedestrians were holding. Another pedestrian was shouting, and one of the agents was reaching for handcuffs. 

“Cameras,” Jensen recognized. 

“I thought people were allowed to film police as long as they didn’t interfere? First amendment rights, right?” Genevieve asked, genuinely surprised. 

“Yeah, but you can sure as hell bet they’ll claim national security or some equally opaque excuse, and even if they didn’t have a story worked out, they’d never follow the law in a situation like this. They need to contain and control the message, and viral videos won’t let them do that. Besides,” Jensen sighed, “that group was being way too obvious about it.” He glanced around the parking lot, spotting a much stealthier camera person, a woman paused next to her car, who was clutching something in her hand carefully concealed by the open car door. “See,” he said nodding, “the people who are sneaky about it aren’t getting caught yet.” 

“Well that’s good,” Genevieve said, sounding relieved. 

“No, not really,” Jensen contradicted, “not for us. You see the LEOs and spooks and military will be on the lookout for footage they didn’t stop, and they’ll be ruthless in hunting it down. They’ll want to scan every frame for any sight of us.” 

Her step quickened again, but just for a stride or two, before she returned to the same slow, steady pace. 

“You’re a fast learner,” Jensen complimented. “Way faster than me.” 

Genevieve scoffed, “I’m not so sure about that.” 

“Trust me, you’re doing great.” 

"Yeah?” she asked, “Are we getting out of here?” 

“They’re not here for us. Not specifically. This is just more or less the edge of the campus sprawl. We just happen to be near their perimeter.” 

“And if we’d been in one of the dorms closer to the main campus?” She asked skeptically. 

"You’d be getting practice on a different skillset.” Jensen was grateful they weren’t facing that scenario. He really wasn’t up to it at the moment. “Still think you made the right choice?” he asked. 

“It’s the only choice.” The conviction in her voice suggested she really meant it. 

They were across the parking lot now, and just had to cut through the sidewalk and up the narrow block to the intersection with Adams. “We’re not getting out of here on Pacific,” Jensen said, half statement, half observation. Adams turned into a footpath at the edge of the complex before it would have connected with the much busier, broader Pacific Street. There was a blockaded emergency vehicle cut-through, but so far none of the myriad emergency vehicles had shown any interest in it. 

“No we’re not,” Genevieve agreed, as they turned up the block and away from the mess on Pacific. 

As if on cue, as they neared the corner, a dusty teal-blue minivan pulled up to the curb and put on its turn signal. Jared must have been circling. Jensen only hoped he hadn’t attracted too much attention, especially since now the van was pulled over on the wrong side of the street. 

“Right on time.” Genevieve’s sped up again, and this time Jensen didn’t stop her. 

The reprieve from the spectacle of police cars and black helicopters gave Jensen a moment to relax and refocus on projecting the image that fit with his role. They were nowhere near in the clear, but he’d feel much better once he was in the van and reunited with Misha. 

_In the van._ Well fuck; that was a flaw . “Uh, how are we getting me in the van?” Jensen asked, trying to keep the anxiety he was feeling out of his voice. 

Genevieve’s head snapped towards his. 

So fail on masking his nerves then.

“What do you mean? Misha and I will help you transfer, we’ll fold and stow the chair, and be on our way.” 

“Yeah, except I’m supposed to be a guy with a broken leg, who would probably stand with some help and then hop and slide into the car while someone helps him get in the seat. Anyone looking is going to notice and look twice if the guy with a broken leg is lifted bodily into the van without supporting himself. Only, I can’t exactly fake that seeing as I’m a paraplegic dosed up on muscle relaxants.” 

“Crap,” Gen, exclaimed as the side door of the van glided open. “Guess we should have thought of that.” 

Before Jensen could comment, Misha clambered out of the van from where he was seated on the corner of the back seat. The center row bucket seat on the near side and the front passenger seat were both empty. Jared was driving, while Katie sat in the passenger side center row bucker seat. The interior was too dim to make out where everyone else was. 

“Misha?” Jensen started. 

“Got a little transfer problem,” Gen interjected, her voice quiet but pleasant. “Cast, paralysis, no standing, incongruity...” 

“Yeah, Katie and I just thought of that,” Misha acknowledged. Turning to Jensen, and resting one hand over Jensen’s, he said, “Baby, we’re gonna wheel you up to the door, you’re gonna put your arms over our shoulders and we’ll lift you to standing, and then maneuver you inside. Katie’s gonna help get you on the seat,” Misha added with a nod at Katie. “Now can you feel or move your legs at all?” 

Misha’s presence and proximity made the rising panic in Jensen’s chest recede, and he took a second to make a self-assessment. If he wasn’t doped up he should have been able to move his right leg a little, but as it was, his lower body was an uncontrollable blob. “N—no,” he stammered. 

“That’s ok. Just do your best to support yourself with your arms and trust us, ok?” 

Jensen nodded.

“Good. Genevieve?” Misha asked, straitening up to look at her. 

“Got it,” she confirmed, pushing the chair the last half meter until Jensen’s knees were about a dozen centimeters from the doorway. 

“Okay, come take Jensen’s right. He’s got slightly more functionality on that side and may be able to help you out.” He bent over again, dropping to one knee to carefully lift Jensen’s feet off the footrests and flip them up and out of the way. 

Misha positioned himself on Jensen’s bad left side, as Genevieve came up to stand on his right. 

Jensen wondered how much of Misha’s strategy was actually based on the idea Jensen might be able to control the right side of his body to help Genevieve, and how much was borne out of Misha’s desire (need) to protect Jensen’s bad side. 

“On three,” Misha prompted. 

Jensen looped his arms over Misha and Genevieve’s shoulders, clutching their shirts for dear life. 

“One... two... three...” And Jensen was up, balanced by sheer force of will on Genevieve and Misha’s part. 

Jensen hung there, teetering, unable to feel or do anything to take control of the situation, and then they were turning and lifting him, until Katie had grabbed him around the waist for extra support. 

Misha climbed into the van, still supporting his half of Jensen’s weight. There was a moment where Katie’s hands slipped and Jensen felt he might fall, but then Misha and Katie were dragging him into the empty bucket seat as Genevieve lifted his legs. She folded up the chair and passed it in to Misha as Katie buckled Jensen in. 

Then Genevieve was pressing the button to close the door and running around the front of the car and climbing in the passenger seat. 

The entire transfer had taken less than 30 seconds, but Jensen knew that was too long, and he’d looked too—wobbly—and unstable to fit with the cover they were trying to project. 

Sure enough as Jared flicked on his right signal to pull out into traffic he said, “Shit, I think we got trouble.” 

"Where?” Harris and Misha asked at the same time.

Jensen glanced over his shoulder to see her seated in the back row opposite Jensen. The center seat was empty, which meant... 

“They’re in back,” Katie whispered in answer to his unvoiced question. “Hides our numbers, and it’s more comfortable than cramming in.” 

“Three o’clock,” Jared said, answering Harris and Misha. “Caucasian female, early twenties, on the phone walking the Pomeranian.” 

Jensen glanced over, and sure enough, there was a tall college-age woman talking on a hot pink cell phone, walking a lap dog, and giving them the stink eye. 

“Shit,” Harris hissed. 

“Oh yeah, she spotted us, and she’s suspicious,” Misha observed, glancing over his shoulder and then following the woman in the rearview mirror as Jared drove away. “Phone call before or after?” 

“Before,” Jared said, catching Jensen and then Misha’s eyes in the rearview. “And now she’s hanging up, and yeah, making another call.” 

Jensen let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, feeling like the bottom was dropping out of his world again. 

Misha reached out and squeezed his left hand while Katie continued fussing with him, sitting sideways in her seat. 

“911?” Misha asked. 

“Probably,” Jared admitted. 

“What do you figure? She’ll say kidnapping?” Misha wondered aloud. 

“Maybe,” Harris said, shrugging. “Or generic suspicious behavior.” She glanced from Jared to Jensen. “Either way she definitely understood Ackles isn’t a guy with a broken leg.” 

“I’m sorry,” Jensen found himself murmuring. 

“It’s not your fault. Don’t go there,” Misha said, squeezing Jensen’s shoulder. 

“Hopefully ORDA’s little lockdown fiasco will tie up the lines, or delay the response time,” Jensen mused. 

“Yeah, we cut that close back there, but great job keeping it together everyone,” Misha praised. He turned back to Jensen, assessing him with a laser focus. “Did anyone make you?” 

“No,” Jensen reassured, leaning into Misha’s palm as he pressed it to Jensen’s cheek, “ORDA’s troops were still in the choppers, not close enough. But there were people with cameras the LEOs missed, at least initially. Chances are we’re on someone’s footage if they go looking hard enough.” 

“And we can pretty much guarantee they’ll track down everyone with a still or video file, it’s just a matter of time.” Misha didn’t sound particularly distressed. The statement was a fact, an observation. There was no fear and no blame. “Do we have another set of plates for this vehicle?” 

“Yes, sir,” Jared answered. 

“Then be sure to swap them before Genevieve goes to drop off the van,” Misha commanded. 

“Will do.” Jared confirmed. “Oh, and before I forget. Gen?” 

“Right.” Genevieve bent over and reached under the glove compartment to retrieve something from the passenger side foot well. She sat up again holding up a large tote bag and a pair of rubber gloves. Donning the gloves she reached into the bag and pulled out a handful of cellphones. “Here,” she said, turning sideways and passing the phones one at a time to Katie, who handed them out to everyone else, even slipping one into the pocket of Jensen’s jeans. Genevieve slipped one more into Jared’s pocket and started explaining. “Welcome to your new burner phones. All purchased in cash, all with minutes cards,” she passed those out, “also paid in cash. These were gathered from over 25 different stores over the last year, 1/3 of which were outside Washington State.” 

“Half of them are from Major Padalecki’s and my personal supplies, Genevieve gathered the others over the last few days,” Misha explained. 

“We have a chart, that we’re going to all need to memorize,” Genevieve continued, shooting Misha a thankful smile. “It’s the phone distribution. Who’s been assigned what phones and in what order we’re supposed to use them.” She passed out copies of the list. “If your phone or number is compromised, ditch the phone and switch to the next one on the list. Please try to use your phone changes wisely, because we only have five per person.” 

“And one extra for your drop-off run,” Jared interjected. 

“Exactly,” Genevieve agreed, smiling over her shoulder at her husband. “If we bring others into our group, we’ll have to acquire more.” 

“What’s this?” Katie asked, pointing to a tiny black square with a green LED on it. 

“That’s a GPS detector,” Genevieve explained. “We deactivated the GPS in all the phones, but in case someone at ORDA or any other law enforcement or military agency tries to turn on the GPS remotely, we added the detectors so you’ll know. If any of these light up, it’s time to ditch and switch.” She shrugged. “It’s a lot more practical than running around with our phones off and the batteries removed. At least this way we can use the phones.” 

“What about the detectors, can they track those?” Harris asked. 

Genevieve shook her head. “It’s unlikely. They’re homemade and programmed from parts bought at a lot of different stores, most of which were paid for in cash.” 

"This wasn’t something you planned overnight,” Harris observed. 

"No,” Genevieve agreed. “It was a project I started back before I knew, when I thought Jared’s work was dangerous and the government might perceive him as a threat. I made a few then, more when I was read in to ORDA, and the rest over the last few days. I used a lot of materials I already had, so that should help throw ORDA off my trail. 

"And if we need to find each other?” Roberts’ disembodied voice piped up from behind the third seat. 

"We use prearranged contacts,” Misha supplied. “Or we use more exclusive means.” 

“What Colonel Collins means is in a few days or a week, we should be recovered, and most of us will be able to use telepathy and pheromone tracking, which is at present a lot more secure than any phone line.” 

“Got it,” Roberts said. “Thanks.” 

“If we need something longer term, I can probably rig a secure satellite feed, add scramblers. It’ll just take time and resources,” Genevieve added. 

“Okay, on to other things like our escape,” Jared said, glancing in the rearview mirror to survey the passengers. “Jensen, what’s the address?” he asked. 

Jensen’s mind blanked for a second. He felt confusion more than panic. Houses and businesses and trees were rushing by the window. He suddenly didn’t recognize where they were, but he knew if they’d been headed in a straight line for Alona’s house, they should have been there already... Unless maybe if they’d taken 45th, and it was busy, which was pretty much always. But wherever they were, it wasn’t 45th, and they weren’t stuck in traffic, and plotting a direct course to their destination would be suicide. 

“Jensen?” This time it was Katie asking. 

“Uh,” Jensen stuttered, crawling back through the detritus in his mind to recall the question. “Wallingford and Thirty-Ninth, It’s got an alley behind it.” 

“We know. You told us,” Jared replied. 

The car swam around him, and Jensen felt himself falling back against the seat. 

“Jensen?” Misha asked, sounding worried. 

“Everything all right?” Jared asked, his tone wary. Jensen couldn’t see him because Jensen’s eyes were closed. Why were they closed? 

“Shit,” Katie said, her voice coming from beside Jensen’s head. 

He could feel her hands on his skin, feather-light touches for the most part, searching and cataloguing. “He really needs another IV and a thorough exam.” More prodding, a little more forceful this time. Then, “Shit.” 

“What?” Misha demanded. 

Jensen heard the click of a seatbelt buckle, and a soft double-thud, that was probably Misha’s knees hitting the cornflower blue carpeting. 

“His pulse is thready and erratic,” Katie said, two fingers of one hand moving from the pulse point on Jensen’s neck to the one on his wrist. “It could be the adrenaline crash, it could be a delayed reaction to the drugs, or maybe he’s developed a new allergy.” Her hands kept moving as she worked, sometimes she dipped into the places where Jensen didn’t have feeling or where sensation hadn’t yet managed to come back, but he knew she was there, because he could feel her body moving through the air and the gentle press of her shoulder to his. 

Misha’s broad, gentle hands with their artistic fingers rough with gun calluses joined Katie’s on their tour. “Jensen? Jen, baby, open your eyes, can you do that?" 

Jensen’s eyelids felt welded shut, coverstones piled over them like a buried stargate. 

"Jen, come on, that’s it, you can do it!” Misha encouraged. 

So he tried again, wedging his eyelids a little further open with every try, until, finally, with a low, soft moan, he was staring at the blurry forms of those around him. No he couldn’t focus. 

“That’s better,” Katie murmured, her tone lacking any real note of relief. “Does it hurt anywhere? Can you tell me how you feel?” 

Jensen tried to look at Katie, but only succeeded in rolling his eyes and making the van blur even more. “Cramps, ‘n’ numb, st—pid,” he managed. 

He thought Katie smiled at that, but he wasn’t sure. 

“Hold him?” Katie asked Misha, as she pushed Jensen forward in his seat and into Misha’s arms. 

A cool draft suddenly played across Jensen’s skin. “What’re y’ doin’?” he asked. 

“Checking to make sure you haven’t slashed or impaled yourself where you can’t feel,” Katie answered. “Doesn’t look like you have. I don’t see any cuts or bruising. Misha?” 

“Hmm, yeah, I’m not seeing anything, but, does his skin feel warm to you?” Misha answered. He pressed a hand against Jensen’s forehead. “He’s running a fever.” 

Jensen wanted to remind them he was _right here_ , but it was too much effort. 

“Yeah, that’s warm all right,” Katie agreed. They must have been touching Jensen’s back where the plasma rifle scarring was. “Pass me the scanner?” 

“Sure.” 

As Misha reached around getting Katie’s equipment. Jensen felt a sudden, overwhelming stab of pain in the vicinity of his left kidney. “Ah,” he gasped. Everything whited out, which didn’t quite make sense, no it was more like the pain overwhelmed every sense until Jensen ceased to exist outside the pain. At that moment, he wished he was completely numb. Having deep-touch sensation was worthless if all it did was ensure he endured agony. 

“Fuck,” Misha swore, “Kidney infection?" 

“Looks like,” Katie answered. 

A beep-whir penetrated the blanket of pain in Jensen’s mind and he realized Katie was consulting the scanner. 

"Do we have medication? Antibiotics safe for us, for Naiians?” Misha asked. His words came out halted and wary, and why not? If the answer was “no,” Jensen was back to being well and truly fucked. 

"Yeah, but to get something strong enough to fight this, I’m gonna have to administer it intravenously and it’s going to put a considerable dent in our supply. We’ll have to resupply. 

Which would be tricky at best, and likely involve theft, Jensen realized. Any thefts or purchases ORDA traced to them would shed more light on Naiian physiology, putting critical information into the hands of the enemy. 

“We’ll figure something out.” Misha’s confidence heartened Jensen. There was no doubt in his husband’s voice, just unwavering commitment and promise. 

“Ok, we still need to get him someplace safe ASAP,” Katie blurted, shuddering against Jensen. “Jared, can you—” 

“I’m taking the most direct route we can without giving ORDA a gold-engraved map to our location,” Jared interjected, reminding Jensen they weren’t alone in the minivan. 

"Good,” came Misha’s reply, but anything he said after that was lost in the wave of newly aggravated pain as Jensen finally blacked out. 

_Chapter 9_

The nagging itch had been bothering Alona all week. No, scratch that, it had been three weeks since she’d started feeling _off_. At times it resembled silence, a forced, false silence that shouldn’t have been there. At other times it was despair and rage, emotions that weren’t hers projected across the ether and impossible to ignore. On Monday she had snapped at a client. Alona had felt terrible, ashamed, and contrite, and she’d immediately apologized. No matter how petty Mr. Samuelson’s complaints against his overworked case worker, he didn’t deserve Alona’s wrath.

He had accepted the apology and seemed to understand something larger was at play... only damned if Alona knew what it was.

On Tuesday, Alona had yelled at a court clerk and an SSA supervisor. Both were just yanking her chain, throwing obstacles in her client’s path whether because they _could_ not because there was a particularly good reason or necessity. Afterwards she felt guilty, especially when she realized neither adversary realized they were actively making the problem worse. One was caught up in a power trip; the other perceiving herself as a victim. Alona saw through it, but knowing couldn’t stop her hostility. She’d known and seen too much for too long.

On Wednesday, Alona started to wonder. The sensations, emotional surges she felt seemed external. There were moments where she felt suddenly, inexplicably empty, disconnected from the rest of the world. Only, she wasn’t sure she’d ever been connected in the first place. Then the feeling of isolation started to ebb, replaced by cold, focused fury, alternating with blind panic and intermingled with nascent hope. She could point to nothing in her life that would evoke those emotions, but they were there. The garbled bursts of static that seemed to confuse everything further, reaching out from the base of her brain and rushing through her could have been a clue, but she didn’t want to think about those. Just like she care to dwell on the unexplained _connection_ between Nicki and her ever since she touched the disappearing glowy stuff Jensen had given her. Most days she tried to pretend none of that was real. How could it have happened? Lawyers didn’t just up and appear in your office, give you magical disappearing goo that makes you psychic, and then just disappear again. Actually no one did that.

But... There was no denying the connection that had been vibrating between Nicki and her ever since...

Crazy or not, imagined or real, by the time work rolled around on Wednesday, Alona decided to stay home. 

“Hey Madeline,” she said over the phone. “Yeah, I’m going to be working from home today, so can you or Blaine cover the afternoon calendar today?” She felt bad asking for it, but at last count only one of their clients had a court appearance today, and the not-so-new anymore, but-still-new-enough attorney who had replaced Jensen had been eager to get more court time.

_No problem, I’ll tell Blaine when she gets in. She’ll be thrilled._

“Thanks,” Alona said with a mix of relief and gratitude.

_You okay?_

“Yeah, I’m just feeling a little off. Didn’t sleep too well,” Alona explained. “Might be coming down with something, and I don’t wanna spread germs, get the whole office sick.”

_If you don’t mind my saying, you’ve had a hair trigger this week. I think some rest is definitely in order. ‘Lona, you’ve been working yourself too hard. Take the rest of the week off, even if it turns out you’re not sick.”_ Madeline sounded amused and exasperated.

“Since when are you the boss?” Alona asked in faux annoyance.

_“Since you proved you were immune to common sense and thought it would be smart to go a year and a half without so much as a sick day,”_ Madeline admitted.

Alona slapped her forehead, dragging her hand over weary eyes. “Has it really been that long?” But she knew it was. She hadn’t taken any time off since before Jensen had disappeared.

_“You know it has, girl. Now take your own advice and relax. I know damn well I can’t keep you from working, but we’d better not see your ass before Monday!”_

Alona teased back, and hung up, feeling optimistic for the first time in almost three weeks. Maybe by Monday things would be looking up.

She fell back into bed with a sigh, interlacing her fingers behind her head and letting the mattress and pillows bounce her. She smiled up at the ceiling.

“Feeling a little better?” Nicki asked, glancing over the top of her reading glasses, which had slipped low on her nose. She was propped up on pillows going through a draft brief with red pen and a yellow highlighter, both dexterously clutched in her left hand.

She wasn’t scowling, but Alona realized her little celebration had bounced Nicki too, probably not a good thing, considering she was writing.

“Sorry,” Alona shrugged, trying for contrite, but coming out teasing. She grinned at Nicki, he tongue darting out flirtatiously. “I really should be more considerate.”

Nicki glared, but it didn’t last long before she was dropping her brief and pens to the bed, rolling on her side, and closing the distance between them. Her soft, warm hands cupped Alona’s head and drew them together in a long kiss, licking into Alona’s mouth as Alona’s hands reached up to grasp her wrists. Passion and heat flared between them and with it the connection that had sparked and grown since the first time already so many months ago.

Alona wasn’t planning for an early morning quickie or any other romp in the sheets, but once they got started, it was too easy to fall into each other. Her mind seemed to flow into Nicki’s, she knew everything Nicki wanted, and Nicki knew precisely what would please Alona. Alona fell back onto the sheets with a moan, as Nicki covered her with her body, unbuttoning the top three buttons of Alona’s sleep shirt with one hand, while she reached between Alona’s legs with the other. Alona had never been happier to have such an ambidextrous wife. 

Nicki pressed the heel of her hand to Alona’s mound, seeking out Alona’s clit with her thumb, and seeking entrance with two slender fingers. 

Alona’s body relaxed immediately, welcoming Nicki in without hesitation, and her arousal shifted into high gear. She was wet and aching, desperate to have more of Nicki inside her, and she knew Nicki felt her desire as if it were her own. “Aaah,” she gasped, as Nicki shifted her kisses from Alona’s lips to her breasts, trailing love bites down Alona’s neck until she reached the rosy flesh of Alona’s now-exposed nipples. 

Nicki lapped at Alona’s left nipple, teasing it until it was hyper-sensitized, and then she blew. 

The shock of cool air was electric. Alona’s nipple pebbled and she keened with pleasure.

Not one to hesitate when Alona was already so worked up, Nicki looked up, meeting her eyes with a devilish grin, and bit down hard.

“Oh baby, fuck yes!” Alona managed, letting her leg fall to the side to give Nicki more room to maneuver.

Nicki looked up from nibbling on Alona’s nipple and skewered her with a greedy, wanton stair.

Oh yeah, Alona was more than willing to reciprocate. She arched up, keening as Nicki turned her attentions to the other nipple. Alona slid one hand in between them, silently cursing Nicki’s love of pajama pants, and she slid her other hand under Nicki’s camisole. Relishing the feel of sweat-slick skin under her fingers and the closeness that came with skin-to-skin contact, she wriggled her fingers inside Nicki’s pants, waiting for Nicki to get with the program.

It didn’t take long. Without a word spoken, Nick understood her intent, and shifted up, bending to continue ravishing Alona’s nipples, while giving Alona better access. 

Alona returned the favor, reaching until she could feel the moist heat of Nicki’s opening. 

Nicki cooed appreciatively, and tangled her fingers in Alona’s hair, urging her on.

Soon Alona was matching Nicki thrust for thrust, the rhythm of thumb on clit reaching fever pitch as they climaxed and tumbled over the edge together.

Alona lay there panting, enjoying Nicki’s comforting, familiar weight, as she slowly came down from the high. “Wow,” she panted when she’d calmed enough to speak. “I wasn’t expecting that, but thank you.” She smiled at Nicki, who responded by rolling off her and kissing her nose.

“We were both way too tense,” she said playfully, gazing into Alona’s eyes and smiling.

Alona flinched at the mention of tension. “You’ve been feeling it too.” It wasn’t a question.

Nicki didn’t answer; she focused on their intertwined fingers instead. “You know I was.”

It was true. Knowing each other’s feelings was one of the scarier side effects Alona really didn’t like to think about. While it was a relief to know her wife was happy and content, she feared the day they had a particularly bad argument or one of them was sick or hurt or... They had no idea how strong the connection was or what would happen if one of them were to die. And they couldn’t exactly test it either. She couldn’t bear the thought of causing Nicki pain because _she_ was in pain.

“You know there’s an old saying that pain shared is pain halved,” Nicki murmured against her neck, nibbling gently at the tender skin behind Alona’s ear.

“I’m not so sure about the validity of that statement when you’re talking about sharing physical pain,” Alona whined.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Nicki replied, leaning back so she could look Alona in the eye. “Who’s to say it wasn’t someone like us speaking from experience.”

Alona shrugged. She supposed it was possible, but she was still a bit unsure of how many people “like them” were out there. She wasn’t even entirely convinced it was real. As long as it was just her and Nicki, she could convince herself it was all in her mind, or maybe they were special, or maybe they just knew each other so well it _felt_ like they could read each other’s minds and sense each other’s moods and emotions.

They drifted a while—it could have been hours, but was really only about 15 minutes, when Alona was startled from her reverie. “Shouldn’t you be heading into work?” she asked, glancing up at Nicki. “It’s almost—” she broke off around a yawn and took the opportunity to glance at her watch. “—Eight thirty.” Her eyes went wide. “How was it possibly that late? And what was Nicki doing still in bed, unshowered? “You’re going to be late! Shit, sorry,” she added feeling guilty for the quickie and the hiccup it put in Nicki’s schedule.

“Alona,” Nicki replied with a quizzical grin and disbelieving stare. “Didn’t we just go over this? I’ve been feeling the same thing you have. Something is not right.” Brushing a lock of hair off Alona’s cheek, she added, “I planned to work from home today. Set it up with everyone yesterday, got McTaggart to cover my hearings this morning—it was nothing big, and he owed me.”

So that was that. Alona settled in to the odd day off, while Nicki engaged in the more familiar rhythm of working from home. Everything was normal, and some of the most desperate external tension eased. It was enough to make Alona think her instincts had been wrong. 

She was disabused of that notion in short order.

~~~

“Oh my god! Holy fucking shit!”

Nicki’s exclamation was accompanied by the drone of the TV, and both were loud enough for Alona to hear over the drone of the vacuum cleaner. Well, Nicki was loud enough anyway. The TV was just a buzz of undifferentiated noise in the background. 

Alona had almost resolved to stick her head into the dining room to see what had prompted Nicki’s exclamation, when Nicki beat her to the punch.

“Babe, you gotta come in here and see this,” Nicki called from her seat at the dining room table.

Following Nicki’s call, Alona entered to find what was at first a familiar scene. Nicki was sitting on one side of the now-circular dining table, her back to the kitchen pass through, files spread out around her in a broad array. She faced the living room, so the TV was in her line of sight if she glanced up from her work. Nicki frequently worked at the table instead of in her home office because of the extra space. Since Alona was home, Nicki was limited to nonconfidential work as long as she was out in the open, and sure enough, Alona could see the files were all research-related—cases, law review articles, a small handful of briefs filed in other cases that were part of the public record and available on Westlaw. 

But Nicki wasn’t working, head bent over an article highlighter and pen dangling from her fingertips. She wasn’t even looking at her work. Instead, she appeared frozen, transfixed, her highlighter long forgotten, back ramrod straight, and eyes glued to the TV...

Which showed utter chaos. Hundreds of troops—no, at least some of them were law enforcement because Alona could see FBI emblazoned on several jackets and vests—including people who were _definitely_ military, but in uniforms Alona didn’t recognize, swarmed the scene. They seemed to have descended on the unsuspecting populace _en masse_. The television cameras showed blockades on Pacific, by the University Bridge, Montlake, at 45th, Brooklyn, 25th... the list went on and on. The UW campus was completely surrounded. Helicopters hovered overhead, the thumping beat of chopper blades blended with the honking of horns and the whine of sirens, creating a deafening cacophony. Alona watched as uniformed figures approached bystanders, knocking on doors, questioning pedestrians, restricting movement. Whatever was going on, it was huge, and no one seemed immune. 

“If you’d gone into the office, you’d be stuck in that,” Nicki said incredulously.

“What the fuck are they doing?” Alona asked, stepping closer, mesmerized by the scene enfolding around her workplace.

“Looking for something... or someone. The news crews don’t have a clue. I’ve heard chemical spill, gas leak, man hunt. KONG said something about an escaped or stolen experiment.” Nicki looked up at Alona disbelieving. “I’m not sure if they were thinking it was some kind of animal or weapon or machine.”

“What are they saying?” Alona asked, walking closer. 

“I just told y—”

“I mean the cops?” Alona clarified. “They’re walking up to people, knocking on doors, they’re saying something. Doesn’t anyone know what?” 

“Whatever it is, they’re not saying,” Nicki answered. “You think this is related to... you know?”

Alona did know. Nicki was talking about the feeling, the itch, the unshakeable, unwavering feeling of wrongness that had been growing, building inside them all week.

“I—” Alona started to speculate, but there was a knock on the door.

Three raps. Sudden. Crisp. Insistent. Their heads whirled in unison towards the sound.

“Did you hear a car?” Nicki asked.

“Are you expecting anyone?” Alona hedged. She couldn’t ponder who would be stopping by to see her just shy of 11 am on a Wednesday, when the only people who knew she was at home were her colleagues. And Madeline undoubtedly had everyone under orders to leave Alona alone under penalty of death—figuratively speaking.

The knock sounded again, quicker, quieter, as if the knocker was hoping no one was home.

“The back door?” Alona asked, surprised.

“It’s more concealed,” Nicki concluded as she rose from her chair, her expression brightening as if the pieces had fallen into place. She set off for the back door almost at a jog, quick long strides eating up the intervening space.

“What are you doing?” Alona asked, flabbergasted, even as she chased after Nicki. If weird shit was going down around her workplace, a police invasion that would have her trapped in her office, and she’d somehow avoided it, then the last thing she wanted to do was run after a mysterious knock on the back door when no one was supposed to be home.

As they got closer, Alona thought she heard rustling coming from outside accompanied by the murmur of voices, but she wasn’t sure. Nicki wasn’t answering, but Alona could feel the sense of understanding radiating from her. What precisely Nicki had figured out was too murky for Alona to comprehend. “Wait, you don’t think someone staged this, do you? Call in a big bomb threat or terrorist plot, get everyone of a law enforcement persuasion within a 50-mile radius to flock to the UW so they can burglarize all the homes of everyone stuck inside the lockdown zone knowing the police will never be able to respond in time if someone happens to be home and call 911?” Alona could see the scenario playing out in Technicolor before her eyes. They were running into a trap, unarmed!

“Bomb threats get people evacuated, not rounded up and detained in place, and burglars don’t knock,” Nicki said matter-of-factly as she grasped the doorknob, flicked open the deadbolt, and turned the handle.

The sight that greeted them on the other side of the door was not within the realm of possibilities Alona had imagined.

“J—Jensen?” she managed, when the momentary shock wore off. 

Eight figures were huddled on their doorstep. No, three of them were crouched next to the bushes, bent low as if pressing themselves into the shadows. Two figures stood alone, one at the front—a man—the one who had knocked, and the other towards the back—a woman—with car keys clutched in her hands. The woman seemed ready to flee. She was hanging back, apart from the group, and she kept throwing glances over her shoulder towards the alley. When Alona followed the woman’s glances, she realized there was a minivan parked just inside the end of the alley, tucked into an open space so it would be difficult to spot from the main street, and covered by the branches of an overhanging cherry tree, obscuring it from above. The woman was waiting for something, maybe to make sure everyone was going to be okay. 

_But how could that be possible?_ Alona wondered as her eyes settled on the three figures balanced half on, half off the back steps. The woman, she didn’t recognize, but she made a lasting impression. She was thin, pale skinned, and blonde, dressed in forgettable clothes, and small enough to seem innocuous, innocent. But the clear strength she displayed by carrying Jensen belied the first impression of weakness, and her eyes were knowing, all-seeing, they cut with diamond precision into Alona’s soul, and combined with the woman’s steely resolve, and unwavering presence, had Alona taking an involuntary step back.

The man and the battered body he helped carry, she would have known anywhere. The man doing the lifting was Misha, Jensen’s husband. She would have recognized his striking blue eyes and dark hair anywhere. But she’d never seen him like this. His eyes were pinched and tired, making his face look weary beyond his years. He’d lost weight since the last time she’d seen him (could it really have been a year and a half already?). He’d never been heavy, always slim and athletic, but now his body seemed stuck somewhere between gaunt and whipcord thin, but with ample musculature in his shoulders and biceps. It looked like he’d been half-starved, but worked so hard he’d retained all the muscle in a few spots. His skin held a pallor that suggested he’d been ill, no , _very_ ill, quite recently, and he while he appeared to be dressed like an outdoorsy college student, Alona could tell the knit cap he’d stuffed on over his wavy locks was as much for warmth as it was for style. 

The other figure, the one suspended between the woman and Misha, was none other than Jensen. Alive after all this time and despite his very mysterious, ominous last encounter with Alona, but barely holding on by the looks of it. He was clearly unconscious, not just sleeping, and his skin was pale as if he hadn’t seen the sun in weeks. There were stripes of bright pink over his cheekbones that suggested a fever, and his face was gaunt. Alona couldn’t help thinking he looked like a doll, broken and discarded.

“—ona...”

Blinking, she realized someone was calling her name, the world sliding back into focus, only slanted, her perception forever altered. She’d known Jensen was in trouble, believed him when he alluded to forces and actors moving in the shadows, she’d felt the threat... But being in the same space, seeing the others like them, realizing their stress and pain and fear had been driving her all week.

Beside her, Nicki gripped the doorframe for support, squeezing Alona’s hand in reassurance. Nicki felt it too, understood. They were in this together.

“Alona,” Misha repeated, his expression grim as his tone, eyes looking up imploringly, “I am sorry to do this to you, but we’re out of options, and what’s going on affects you and Nicki too, I’m sorry. Can you please let us in?”

_Of course_ , Alona realized. This was what the pain, the urgency, was all about. Now that the source of the growing desperation inside her was known, she felt like she’d been graced with perfect clarity. Thinking back to the time Jensen had visited her at her office, she realized now what he’d meant about dark times ahead, bad things lurking on the horizon. He might not have expected it to manifest like this, but it was the darkness he’d warned about nonetheless, and she was ready. Alona didn’t need to read Misha’s mind or study his body language to understand the stakes, and the details weren’t important, not right now anyway.

Beside her, Nicki squeezed her hand in silent agreement. “Of course,” Alona said, stepping aside as Nicki took a step back inside to give the group room to enter. 

Misha and the blonde woman immediately proceeded up the steps carrying Jensen between them. The three people crouched next to the bushes looked ready to follow, but the man who had knocked and the woman with the keys hung back. 

Alona studied them more closely, realizing with a sudden rush of awareness that she knew the man. He was Jared, on of Jensen’s best friends. He worked with Misha, or at least he used to. She’d let him a few times at holiday parties or when she and Nicki had gone for dinner at Jensen’s. Jared was married, or at least he had been when she’d last talked to him, but Alona couldn’t recall if she’d ever met his wife. She could tell now the woman was Jared’s wife... Only she was—normal—for lack of a better term and seemed to be walking away. 

Surely whatever was going on wasn’t driving a loving couple apart! That could have been _her_. If not for the mysterious vial and it’s glowing contents it would have been her. Shocked, heart racing as she rushed to find the words to express the utter wrongness of what seemed to be happening, she opened her mouth to speak.

The unexpected pressure of Misha’s hand on her wrist stopped her short. She tore her eyes away from Jared’s wife’s retreating back and glanced back at Misha. He had shifted Jensen in his arms so one hand was free. It looked terribly uncomfortable, but Misha wasn’t even straining under the added weight.

“Genevieve is coming back,” he said solemnly. “She’s just got to get rid of the car first, and she’s the only one of us they won’t be looking for right away. We can’t pass. They see her and don’t notice. Don’t suspect.” He cast a glance over his shoulder and gave... Genevieve... a long lingering look full of concern and hope and fear. When he turned back to Alona his eyes expressed what he couldn’t convey with words—his sincere gratitude and genuine pleasure that Alona cared about Genevieve despite her normality. “Right now, Jensen needs your help. Can we take him someplace to lie down? Katie,” he cocked his head towards the blonde woman who was carrying Jensen’s feet, “needs to start an IV.” He hesitated, worrying his lower lip in contemplation, and forged onwards. “If you can, maybe somewhere we won’t be found right away on a room-to-room search? Sorry.” He shrugged as best he could with Jensen’s added weight. “I know this is a lot to ask.”

“No,” Alona said distantly, her mind drifting, wishing she could follow Jared’s wife, worried about where she was going. Alona shook herself, realizing belatedly her one-word answer could have been easily misunderstood. “I—I mean yes, we can find a place for all of you, for Jensen, but no, it’s not a lot to ask.”

“We’ve known something was wrong, getting worse, for the last week,” Nicki added.

The blonde woman, who was apparently named Katie and quite possibly a doctor or nurse, and Jensen shared a nervous glance. “Shit. We had no idea the effect was that strong,” Katie began.

Katie looked like she was going to continue, even as the remainder of their rag-tag group traipsed inside, but then something happened and it hit them all like a blow to the head.

Or maybe a knife to the gut.

The sensation didn’t correspond to anything physical and every analogy and simile that sprang to mind was woefully inadequate. Alona knew the pain was in her mind, but not in the sense she was imagining it, and not even in terms of psychological pain manifesting as physical. No, this was agony in the part of herself that was new, that had awoken only after she touched Jensen’s glowing gift and was only just beginning to discover. It was a part of her that extended outside the physical confines of her body and shared existence with others and yet permeated to her core.

And right now someone was jabbing it with a hot poker, and looking down, she knew that someone was Jensen. It was unintentional and passed after a few seconds, but Jensen was _projecting_ so much they were all in danger if it happened again. She had half a mind to ask if it was always like that, if you’re in pain, you project; the worse it is, the worse it gets for everyone... only, no, the others were all sick, off, she could feel that, and Jensen was worse off than the rest of them, and hurt in a different way.

So, as soon as the pain abated enough to think, she dead bolted the door behind the last of their visitors and said, “Bedroom, now. We can move you guys somewhat safer later, but right now Jensen needs help.

She started off pointing the way and caught Misha’s eye.

He nodded, and she felt like she’d passed an important test.

As she led Misha, Katie, and Jensen toward the guest room, she was dimly aware of Nicki leading the others away, probably towards the office where they had both a roll-away and an air mattress stored for when her family came to stay or they were visited by an unreasonably large group of Nicki’s college or law school friends all at the same time. For someone generally introverted, Nicki seemed to make lasting connections with a lot of people.

“Come on, I’ve got a place you can lie down for a while,” she heard Nicki say to the others, her voice soft and reassuring.

Alona could feel the fear radiating from the others, their concern for Jensen almost palpable. She wanted to follow, find out more about what was happening—had happened—avoid facing whatever had happened to Jensen for just a little while longer, but they were relying on her, Jensen needed her, so she kept moving, and showed Misha and Katie into the guest room.

They settled Jensen down, Katie immediately diving into a bag Alona hadn’t noticed she was carrying and retrieving IV supplies and some sort of handheld contraption fresh out of Star Trek. Alona hovered in the doorway, unsure what to do, not knowing if they needed her, and feeling like she was intruding. 

Katie started running the device up and down along Jensen’s sprawled body, and Alona couldn’t suppress the giggle. She clapped her hand over her mouth eyes wide with embarrassment as Misha and Katie’s heads swiveled as one, pinning her with their stares.

“I’m sorry,” Alona replied, chastened. “It’s just—” she waved her hand flailingly, “ _Star Trek_ and Jensen.” She sounded almost hysterical to her own ears and hoped the others understood what she meant.

To her surprise, Katie smiled, and Misha’s eyes grew damp and distant. “You have no idea,” he said.

Alona stood frozen and watched, feeling horribly like she was intruding. How had it come to this? Not that long ago she’d considered Jensen one of her closest friends, Misha too. Between the two of them, they used to watch over Jensen, protecting him from his overactive imagination and tendency toward over work. She’d even felt a kinship with Misha—she’d thought they shared an understanding, a perspective. Then again she’d always thought Misha reminded her a bit of Nicki, and Alona knew Nicki understood far more than she acknowledged about this entire... situation. Alona could see it in her wife’s eyes long before she could feel the understanding hiding in a corner of her mind. 

The moment was broken when Katie swore, her arm swinging so violently Alona thought she might hurl the tricorder thingy across the room. Startled, Alona tripped on her own feet. She found herself drawn towards the others, desperate to know what was going on with Jensen.

“It’s bad?” Misha murmured from behind his hand. He’d taken to pacing with his left elbow clasped in his right hand, his left hand blocking his mouth as it fidgeted. It was a rhetorical question, Alona realized, but also a request for magnitude.

“The infection’s spreading like wildfire. If we don’t get this under control now, he’s going to need dialysis, and I don’t even want to talk about how not equipped for that we are or how impossible it would be on the run.” Katie bit her lip, her expression grim. “His fever’s spiking too. We’ve got to get him out of these clothes before it climbs any higher.”

“Can I do anything to help?” Alona managed at last, feeling woefully out of her depth. She was hovering, and they were using a tricorder. What could she possibly do but stay out of the way?

“Can you find something to hang this from?” Misha asked, holding up an IV bag and some tubing

Alona just stared at it for a moment, thinking about what Misha had said—and implied—about their need to hide and flee. She’d watched the footage on TV and had no doubt what—or rather who—all those uniformed spooks, cops, and soldiers were after. The question was, what did she possibly have that would work and let them move at a moment’s notice? “Just a sec,” she managed, and turned, half running towards her closet. She emerged a moment later with a hanger and a coat rack she and Nicki had received as a house-warming present and had never really used. The items were lightweight but sturdy and would surely hang the IV bag from a functional height.

“What are you giving him?” Alona asked, hovering closer.

“Antibiotics,” Misha answered for Katie, who was busy with the IV and holding the normally hand-held part of the tricorder thing in her mouth. 

“Jensen’s allergic to penicillin,” Alona blurted.

Katie and Misha whirled to pin her with an annoyed glare. “We know,” they said in tandem.

Alona blushed harder. Of course they knew. Misha was still Misha, right? And he’d always worried more about Jensen than Jensen had. Of course he knew that. And Katie was some sort of medic or doctor, so... Alona’s thoughts broke off when she realized Misha was still staring at her because she was wringing her hands. “Sorry,” she muttered.

“You should get yourself tested,” Katie said resignedly, as she worked on Jensen. She seemed so intent on Jensen it took Alona a minute to realize Katie was addressing her.

“E—excuse me?” Alona stammered, wondering if the comment was supposed to be some kind of ignorant, homophobic slur.

“For drug allergies,” Katie continued glancing up from where she’d finished taping the IV needle to the back of Jensen’s hand.

Alona could feel her eyebrows shooting towards her hairline. 

“I’m betting you haven’t been tested since you exposed yourself to the nanolumes Jensen gave you?” Katie added, once again focused on Jensen. “And you probably haven’t gotten sick, which is good, because discovering you’d suddenly developed numerous rare allergies is a good way to get yourself killed... or attract ORDA’s attention.”

There was that name again. “ORDA?” Alona found herself asking aloud.

“Jensen didn’t tell you,” Misha said, half questioning.

“Of course he didn’t,” Katie muttered distractedly. “Jensen would never violate orders unnecessarily or do anything to put civilians at increased risk.” She broke off when the device in her hand beeped. “Fuck!” she cursed upon seeing its readout. “His temp is up to 104, sorry, 40 Celsius,” Katie said glancing up at Misha. “We’ve got to get that down. Help me strip him?” s

Misha’s hands were already flying over Jensen’s clothes. He grunted in frustration when he realized the IV was in the way. “Should’ve thought of that first,” he grunted. “Scissors?” 

“Oh, um, in the kitchen” Alona sprang into action, grateful to finally feel useful. Her feet found their way to the kitchen without any conscious input from her brain, yet when she arrived, she stood there staring, standing stock still, before she remembered what it was she sought. _Scissors..._ The countertop was cool beneath her palms, and the darkened screen of the television, the piles of Nicki’s work spread out across the table’s surface jarred her brain—a jagged spike of incongruity that left an unbridgeable gap between the fragments of her reality. How had they gone from there... to here... in so little time? Absently, she wondered how Nicki was doing, the soft murmur of voices drifting from the direction of the guest room caught her attention. Their house was a three-bedroom with the master bedroom set apart off the hallway that housed those they used as a guestroom and office, so there was no easy way to follow up on Nicki and the others. But as quickly as the urge to check in with Nicki and the others came, it passed, replaced by the image of Jensen’s appalling pallor and the raw concern and fear in his companion’s voices.

The kitchen shears were in her hand and she was halfway back to the bedroom before her mind checked in with her body again.

When she slipped back through the half-open door, Misha and Katie were hovering over Jensen like a swarm of bees, so intent on their patient they hadn’t noticed her entrance. They’d removed Jensen’s shoes and socks and sweat pants, and Katie was releasing the elastic on what appeared to be an air cast that was wrapped around his right ankle. Surprised, she uttered a little gasp, and that got Misha and Katie’s attention.

Their heads snapped around again, their eyes wide and postures protective.

There was something odd about their behavior; they were paranoid and jumpy, beyond what Alona expected for people on the run from who-knows-what. It wasn’t just fear of being discovered, the need to protect a fallen friend. No, they were genuinely surprised, like they should have known she was there, but they didn’t and the shock of it was painted all over their faces. It had something to do with the same _wrongness_ and emptiness and tension Alona had been feeling all week.

“Sorry,” Alona apologized. It seemed like the thing to do. “Did he break his ankle?” she asked.

“Wha—” Misha started.

“No,” Katie answered. “That was part of a ruse.”

Misha still seemed confused, until Katie pointed at the discarded cast.

“I found the kitchen shears,” Alona said, stepping closer, and holding out the implement on her upturned palm, an offering. They’ll cut through almost anything. Well, not anything, I mean not metal, and probably not human bone, but if he’s got on several shirts...” She felt like a total moron. Blithering idiot! Why couldn’t she just shut up?

“Thanks,” Katie said, taking the proffered item and handing it to Misha, who immediately slipped the scissors into Jensen’s left sleeve, and began cutting. 

“Why—why are you so worried about his fever?” Alona asked at last, crossing her arms over her chest and clearing her throat. “104’s high, but I thought it wasn’t really dangerous unless it’s at least 105?” 

“It’s not,” Katie answered. 

Alona was sure Katie was addressing her, even though her focus remained on Jensen. Katie had pulled something that looked like a futuristic version of chemical cold packs from her bag, and was tucking them underneath and around Jensen’s body. “Not if you’re human, anyway.”

It was a throwaway line the way she said it, in consequential, and Alona didn’t grasp the import for a good five seconds. When it finally sunk in, it was like walking face first into a wall. The impact left her reeling.

_Not a problem if you’re human, but it is for Jensen, so Jensen’s not human..._

“...And neither are we,” she mouthed. She’d already known, just hadn’t heard it put into words.

“For a Naiian, 104 is like a human having a temperature of almost 106, only it’s much, much worse, because many of the neurotransmitters that make us tick are wildly unstable anywhere above 103. The longer Jensen stays this way, the more likely the chemicals in his brain will break down into toxic byproducts, causing his brain to stop working and then disintegrate.”

“N—naiians?” Alona asked.

“It’s what _we_ call ourselves,” Misha answered, ending in an ironic chuckle.

“They call us something else.” It wasn’t a question, not really.

“Markers,” Misha offered.

“—Unnatural, abominations, mistakes, freaks, alien scum,” Katie offered.

“Alien—”

“Only partly,” Misha reassured.

Only it was anything but. Alona shivered.

“Here let me get that sleeve,” Misha said to Katie, as he cut through the last remaining bit of fabric holding the shirts to Jensen’s body.

They worked in tandem, pulling the shirts away from Jensen’s frail form, rolling him onto his side to get it free.

What Alona saw on Jensen’s back made her gasp. Instead of smooth skin, the left side of Jensen’s back was shiny and uneven, covered in near iridescent scar tissue. It reminded Alona of a really bad burn scar, only different. It was mottled, and interrupted in places with thicker, ropey scars. The long-healed wound started at the base of Jensen’s left scapula down to the small of his back. It wrapped along his side, snaking out to cover part of his ribs, while on the other side a section of the scar reached out covering Jensen’s spine. Something about the mark screamed “trauma” to Alona, and she knew it hadn’t been caused by fire, at least not only. Something about the scar made her think something had struck Jensen. Her ribs twinged in sympathy, and she couldn’t hold back a pained hiss. Her stomach turned, and she felt guilty and angry. This was her friend! What had happened to him? Who would inflict such painful-looking injuries, and how? “Looks like that should have paralyzed him,” Alona observed.

“It did,” came Misha’s curt reply.

She couldn’t decide if Misha’s statement was genuine or some attempt at dark humor. Only, Misha wouldn’t joke about something like that, and Jensen...

He was still unconscious, but he was so, so still. “What. What do you mean? He can’t walk?”

“Right now? No,” Katie answered, looking up after settling the last of the devices Alona had decided were icepacks, “But it’s a lot more complicated than that. Normally Jensen’s physiology compensates, creates kind of a biochemical workaround, but considering ORDA almost succeeded in killing him, his body chemistry is completely out of whack. We had to dose him with a drug that temporarily shuts down production of several neurotransmitters, so until that wears off and Jensen’s body normalizes, it’s just like he’s human. Well, in terms of being paralyzed. Unfortunately, he doesn’t stop being allergic to everything.”

“Boss, Doc.”

Alona whirled around to find Jared standing in the doorway holding a large black bag. 

“Hey Alona,” he acknowledged, then to Katie and Misha, “I got the rest of the med kit.” 

“Toss it here.” Katie held out her hands and caught the bag when Jared threw it across the room. Misha unzipped it and started tearing into it before she had set it down on the bed. 

“Azetomeycin? That’ll work, won’t it?” he asked holding up a clear vial bearing a complicated barcode.

“Yeah, by IV, it should be strong enough,” Katie replied. Turning back towards Alona and Jared, she added, “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Jared ran his hands through his hair looking very anxious. 

Alona watched as Katie and Misha moved in tandem, adjusting Jensen’s IV, administering the drug, and consulting the tricorder-looking thing with concerned tutting noises. They were so sure of themselves, they moved like they’d done this sort of thing a million times before and yet... there was something discordant about the scene before her. The seemed abjectly terrified, though they were keeping it under wraps. She was puzzling out the scene in front of her. The spell broke when she heard Jared call her name, but when she turned to look at him, he was silent and still, watching her as she watched them. 

_You can go ahead and ask,_ he prompted. She heard him say it, she was certain. She knew his voice, but he didn’t speak the words aloud.

“I—” she started.

But he shook his head and glanced at the bed, where Katie and Misha seemed to have slipped into their own world. 

Taking the hint, she took a deep breath, and asked, “What is ORDA?”

Katie and Misha both stopped what they were doing. 

“I’ll go get Nicki,” Jared said in a falsely cheerful voice. “The others should be settled by now.”

_Interlude 2_

The doctor surveyed the room before her. A tall, thin man with reddish hair and good looks sat at the table in the interrogation room. He wasn’t handcuffed, and he still had all his personal effects about him, including his wallet and keys. He was flipping the keys back and forth, back and forth around his fingers, the key ring catching on his hand with each turn. It was odd, unsettling, to see a _Marker_ in here unrestrained. But the man in the interrogation room didn’t know he was a Marker. He didn’t even know Markers existed. And while the plan was to eventually treat him like any other Marker, in the interim he had a far more important purpose. The elaborate scheme of carrots and sticks that would get them to that point didn’t allow for him to be chained to the table.

She allowed herself an indulgent smile before composing herself. 

He looked up immediately when the door opened, eyes tracking her nervously as she crossed the room, heels clacking on the tile-covered concrete. His expression turned hopeful as she neared the table, and he rose halfway to meet her, hand ghosting out in expectation, then falling limply to his side. Confusion replaced hope as she took the seat across from him without as much as a word of acknowledgment or greeting. He returned to his seat with a plop.

The doctor’s eyes never lifted from the nondescript black folder nestled under her hands. She waited. One beat, two.

“Excuse me, ma’am, can you—” he shifted forward in his seat, trying to catch her eye. “—Can you tell me what’s going on?”

She didn’t respond and didn’t look up.

“My son, he’s five; he said a woman, a—a doctor was giving him a lot of attention at school, and she, she made him cry. She jabbed him with a needle. I just wanted to know what she was doing. They didn’t say they were doing vaccinations at school, and normally they ask us. The parents, I mean.”

She let him ramble, waiting. Patience. He was almost there.

“But then my daughter, she’s eight, she said men and women with military uniforms came to her school, and they took her blood. Please, I just want to know what is going on with my children. Why is my family being targeted? What’s going on?”

_Bingo._

“Your family has caused quite a bit of trouble for the United States government,” the doctor began.

The man’s face changed, flashing through relief, anger, desperation, horror. “If this is about my brother-in-law, I swear he’s harmless. I know his ideas and politics are a bit... out there, but Misha’s a scientist. He’s very passionate about his work, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly, I promise.”

It took all her effort to suppress the smug smile that threatened to consume her face. “I assure you, Mr. Ackles, Misha Collins is most definitely _not_ harmless. He’s quite a bit more dangerous than you ever imagined.” A beat to let it sink in. “But that’s because we trained him.” Another pause. “And it’s not your brother-in-law, but your brother that has been causing problems.”

“My brother?” Mr. Ackles voice pitched so high, it squeaked. He was clearly startled; his mouth opened and closed a few times as he floundered. “Jensen?” his voice cracked. 

“Yes, Jensen,” she confirmed 

“But—He’s a _lawyer_. He helps people. And I know some lawyers get a bad rap, but Jen’s... Paranoid. Obsessive. He wouldn’t do anything. He’s too careful.” 

The look on Mr. Ackles’ face was pure disbelief tinged with terror. 

_Good._

“You’re correct that your brother is obsessive and he does try to help people. But this time,” she slid forward in her chair and gripped Mr. Ackles’ wrist so hard he flinched and yelped in pain. “This time,” she repeated, catching and holding his eye, “he’s helped the wrong group of people, and he’s put millions of lives in danger.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Oh yes, his—conviction—has put your life, and your children’s lives in grave danger.”

“What?”

“If you care about your children, you will do exactly as I say.”

“No, please—” Mr. Ackles begged, breath coming in harsh pants. He was sweating, and she wouldn’t be surprised if he pissed his pants.

“What do you want from me?” he whispered.

“Your brother is going to contact your family soon.”

“What does that have to do with my kids?” he asked.

“Oh it has _everything_ to do with your entire family. Your brother is a threat to every life on earth. We need him back, and you are going to help us catch him.”

“You want me to spy on him?” Mr. Ackles asked, in horrified realization.

She squeezed harder, the bones in his wrist squeaking under the pressure. “You _will_ spy on him. You will do everything I tell you to do.” Finally, she allowed herself a smile. “If you don’t, we’ll arrest your wife, rendition her to someplace you’ve never heard of. You’ll never see your children again, never even find out where they are—” She paused, “or if they’re still alive. And you, you’ll be undergoing the same tests as your children. You will be in my custody and you will never see the outside world again.” She paused, letting the threats sink in. 

“I don’t—”

On cue, the deadbolts in the 8-inch-thick, reinforced steel composite door slammed shut and the room’s small windows went black, bathing its occupants in darkness, the sole fluorescent overhead the only source of light.

“Oh I am absolutely serious. The only way out of this room is for you to do everything I say,” she added with a smile. “I’m not threatening you to be mean or vindictive, Mr. Ackles. Without your cooperation you and your family are a threat to national security. You care about your brother,” she patted Mr. Ackles’ hand. “You want to help him.”

“What do I do?” he asked.

“I’m glad we can see eye to eye.”

_Chapter 10_

Misha had been feeling restless since they’d arrived at Nicki and Alona’s. Genevieve had made it back okay, but he couldn’t shake the feeling they were being watched. It might have just been his malfunctioning telepathy, but Misha wasn’t so sure.

After the first night, when Jensen’s condition had stabilized, they’d moved everyone down into Nicki and Alona’s furnished basement and garage. Thanks to strategic placement of shelving units and furniture, they were able to conceal the existence of the guest room, and moved most of the ORDA escapees in there. 

And not a moment too soon. At 1700 hours, a day and a half after their escape, ORDA came to call. The two representatives searched and prodded and poked, but they didn’t find what they were looking for.

~~~

Misha walked down the stairs to Nicki and Alona’s basement leaning heavily on the railing as he went. He flinched as the door closed behind him with a squeak. It was _so loud_. Except it wasn’t. He knew that, but it was impossible not to jump after two days on the run with no sleep. The close call wasn’t helping any, either.

“Did they leave?” Jensen rasped.

Misha started, stumbling against the wall and catching himself, only to send the dustpan hanging from the wall careening towards the floor. He fumbled and caught it before it landed with an even louder clatter. He let out a long, low breath. Noise was the enemy. Any chance of discovery… they couldn’t afford it. _Jensen_ couldn’t afford it.

“Misha, did they leave?” Jensen asked again. His voice was quiet, raspy, weak. _Still too weak._

They needed to move. To get out, away, go _somewhere_. It wasn’t safe here. Jensen was still so sick, and the rest of them weren’t exactly spry and healthy either. The recovery from symbiote withdrawal was slow and painful. Misha was still having waves of dizziness, muscle spasms, and—of course—trouble breathing, and he been better off than Jensen or Katie. 

But that was the problem. They were still weak. It would be _risky_ to move Jensen or Aldis. And none of their options were good ones.

Misha’s hand pressed against the symbiote hooked into his belt. Having it back wasn’t enough, he thought again. They needed something more secure. His heart thudded at the thought of being separated from the small egg-shaped device with which his body had formed a symbiotic relationship. _A relationship that can’t save you now_ , he thought bitterly. 

They still hadn’t found a way around ORDA’s wormhole tacking. Misha had helped _develop_ that system. Hell, Jensen and Katie had done most of the work, but they’d had the good sense to keep the methodology to themselves for as long as they could. 

Jensen had understood the risk, he’d put his faith in the right people—like Katie, who many Naiians had distrusted because she was still human then—while his fears had all been in the right place. He’d been wrong about Jared, but then again, Jensen had never been sure, and that situation had been a manipulation from the start—a manipulation by someone Jensen had known not to trust.

But now here they were, unable to travel anywhere by wormhole without alerting the new ORDA to their whereabouts and inviting ORDA’s Marker-hunting goons to hunt them. Besides, there were jamming fields covering so much of Earth (and most Earth-controlled planets), they had nowhere to go. If they did use a wormhole, chances were they’d just get bounced into a trap.

“Misha? You—” Jensen’s question broke off in a fit of coughing, “you okay?” 

It was the hint of panic in Jensen’s voice that finally snapped Misha out of his reverie. 

“Yeah, yeah, baby, I’m fine. I’m here,” he replied, hanging the dustpan back on its hook and continuing gingerly down the stairs. He sucked in a breath as Jensen came into view.

He was strikingly pale in the basement’s dim light, the rooms only light cast his exposed head and hands in an eerie glow. Jensen’s skin looked paper-thin and damp, almost waxy, as if he could crack or melt at any moment. The blue plaid flannel blanket that formed the topmost layer of the pile of throws and blankets covering exaggerated the contrast. Misha knew Jensen was doing a lot better than he had been before they escaped, better even than he was last night, but the IV taped to the back of his hand and the three bags hanging from the improvised hanger-and-bookshelf IV pole were an unmistakable reminder of how precarious Jensen’s health still was. _Fuck_! They just had to hope everything would go back to normal once their bodies had enough time to reach equilibrium with their telepathically linked external biomechanical symbiotes. 

“Did they go?” Jensen repeated again. This time he sounded more amused than worried.

“Yeah, they left.” Misha tiptoed down the last three steps and crossed the room to Jensen’s side. He settled on the edge of the couch, precariously perched and careful not to jostle Jensen or put any pressure on him. The memory of Jensen’s rattling, jagged, wheezing breaths was still too fresh in Misha’s mind. 

“But,” Jensen prompted.

“There is no ‘but,’” Misha lied. He looked down at Jensen, taking Jensen’s hand—the one without the IV—between his. He pressed a soft kiss to the back of Jensen’s hand and began massaging it, trying to bring some warmth to it. It was too cold here in the basement. Katie had even said it was bad for their recovery, but they didn’t really have any choice. They all knew the lengths ORDA would go to, and a spike in the electrical or gas usage in a “known associate’s” home was a surefire way to attract attention. In a twisted way, they were lucky the new establishment had taken such a hardline position against Naiians and embarked on their warpath of “cleaning house.” 

The people who really knew how to be thorough—most of them leaders in the old guard—were now deemed untrustworthy (for being Markers), suspect (for being allies of Markers), dying (the others still trapped in ORDA custody suffering symbiote withdrawal), or missing (disappeared wherever ORDA had stashed them). If they’d been leading the inspection—hell if Misha himself had been in charge—they wouldn’t have escaped detection. They would have brought bioscanners and secured the residents out of sight on the premises. If Misha was running the show, he would have confirmed life signs in advance and disconnected the power in a first attempt to disrupt any jamming devices or other tech that could be blocking the scanner or producing false data. They would have gotten the building plans and all permits for modifications from the city and used that to plan the search team and pattern. They would have swept every inch of the building and wouldn’t have missed the basement or fallen for the junk piled at the back of the garage. He certainly wouldn’t have left without confirming if there was an attic crawlspace. He also would have bugged the house. In a sick twist of irony, the very destructive and discriminatory policies the new leadership had put in place had allowed Misha and his band of AWOL fugitives to escape detection. 

_For now._

“Misha?” Jensen prompted again, “Don’t fucking lie to me. I can read your mind if I have to, but I know there’s something wrong. Something you’re not saying.”

Misha’s eyes went wide, snapping up to meet Jensen’s. He was deadly serious, and that was what broke Misha’s resolve. Every time Jensen tried to use his Marker abilities it sent his biochemistry further out of whack, undoing the progress of his painstakingly slow recovery. Misha knew his husband well enough to know he could and _would_ make good on that threat. Because in their relationship Jensen valued honesty above his own safety, and because Jensen felt responsible for all of them… Felt responsible and would do anything he could, at any cost to himself, to see they— _his people_ survived.

_Tony warned you._

“They left. Missed the basement and didn’t check the attic crawlspace,” Misha replied. He blinked and glanced up at the ceiling, reaching out with this mind to see what was going on.

Katie was asking if it was okay to come down now. Nicki was giving her a tentative yes, but he and Alona both weren’t really sure the coast was really clear. Instead of being effortless—like it should be—the mental exercise made him a little nauseous, an instant reminder his own recovery was far from complete. 

“Katie hid up there, and she’s coming down now,” he explained, biting his lip as he struggled to find the words to explain what he was feeling, thinking. It would be so much easier if he could just _share_ his mind with Jensen, but at the moment his own telepathic control was iffy at best, and that kind of exertion could _kill_ Jensen. “It was too easy. They weren’t thorough like any of us would have been. We didn’t even find any bugs. But one of them—Russell, I think?—seemed way too interested in the shelving at the back of the garage. I’m still too weak to get a solid read on people, but there’s no way I should have been able to play hide and seek in the main level of the house— _and win_.”

“You think they know we’re here? Or they’re suspicious enough to come back?” Jensen suggested.

“Either? Both? Or they already have this place bugged and they’re using technology we either don’t know about or aren’t trained to detect or… we’re just too weak to sense it,” Misha admitted. “I—we know they’re getting intel, tech, drugs—you name it—from their Licinian friends,” he couldn’t quite keep the sneer out of his voice, “I just keep wondering what else they’ve got. Maybe they’ve got a way to detect us without any of the traditional methods. Hell, maybe we never escaped and this is all an elaborate mirage or virtual world.”

“Now who’s paranoid,” Jensen whispered with an almost-laugh. The corners of his mouth tugged upward in a faint smile.

Jensen’s casual reference to their past brought tears to Misha’s eyes. “I—I’m sorry—”

“Shh, none of that,” Jensen croaked, batting ineffectively at Misha’s hands. “Aren’t you supposed to be comforting me,” he teased. There was no heat behind it.

Misha blinked hard and focused on Jensen. “I got you into this.”

“No you didn’t, babe. I was born this way, just like you. Chances are they would have found me sooner or later, and I’d be right back where we started. Besides,” Jensen added, eyes downcast, “if I hadn’t found out when I did, chances are we would all be dead.” Jensen was silent for a long moment. He shuddered with cold, prompting Misha to tuck the blankets tighter around him. “You gonna tell me what you’re thinking?” he prodded with a whisper.

“Jensen,” Misha started. He didn’t want to say it; by the way Jensen was acting, he already knew the answer anyway. Delaying would only make Jensen angrier, and Misha didn’t want to cause him any more stress. “We can’t stay here. Even if they haven’t bugged the place already—which, by the way, I’m counting on otherwise we are already dead in the water—they’re watching Nicki and Alona. Right now, ORDA doesn’t know they’re Markers, but being here we’re putting them in more danger and putting ourselves in danger. They know you’ve got connections with Nicki and Alona, so they’re going to keep looking until they find us. Us being here puts more attention on Nicki and Alona and means if we get caught, they get found out.”

“But we can’t leave because I’m still too sick,” Jensen supplied sounding defeated. “Misha, you— _can’t_ risk everyone’s lives because of me. You have to go. Leave me—”

“Pfft,” Misha sputtered, squeezing Jensen’s hand tighter. “Don’t be ridiculous—”

Jensen tried to protest.

“—Or melodramatic, or self-sacrificing, or _self-centered_.” Misha met Jensen’s wide, scared eyes, and shook his head. “Babe, you’re not the only one still sick here, or are you forgetting about Hodge, Harris, and Roberts tucked away in the back room?” He nodded towards the door that led to the basement’s finished side.

“They’re not as sick as me,” Jensen started, then shook his head, “well Aldis is almost as sick as me, but Harris’s doing way better, and Roberts never got quite as sick as us.”

“In case you’re forgetting Katie’s not doing so hot herself, and I think she—as the _medical doctor_ among us, would probably object to you deciding all her patients should go on the run,” Misha added gently.

“I didn’t—I would never, Misha, I don’t think I’m more—I didn’t mean to suggest—”

“I know,” Misha murmured reassuringly, kissing Jensen’s hand again. “Believe me I know. It’s just who you are. You’re the guy who would give up his life for others without hesitation. It’s part of what I love about you, but trust me when I say we need to work together to get ourselves through this. I’m not going to give up you or Hodge or Padalecki or _anyone_.” He shook his head. “Not on my watch, not if I there’s anything I can do about it. I’ll give up myself before I let those bastards touch any one of you or any of my people.”

“ _I_ know,” Jensen said with a smile, the wild desperation finally leaving his eyes. “‘Cause that’s who you are. You’re that guy, always the Colonel, the leader. And that’s a huge part of why I love you.” Jensen held Misha’s gaze for a few beats before he spoke again. “But none of that solves the problem. We still can’t stay here, and we can’t leave, so what the hell are we gonna do?”

A squeak and the creak of a step from above grabbed their attention. Momentary panic flooded through Misha, and he could feel the faintest echo of that fear pouring out of Jensen’s mind. He’d already thrown himself on top of Jensen out of reflex—he’d do anything to protect Jensen, no matter the cost—before he realized who was descending the stairs.

“Katie,” Jensen breathed, as his rigid body relaxed underneath Misha.

“I’d scold you for crushing my patient, Colonel, but I know you’re just trying to protect him,” Katie half-teased as she strode into view. “Damn I hate this; those bastards didn’t just cripple us, try to kill us, the lingering effects keep fucking up our recovery, setting us all back, because we keep jumping at shadows when we should know there’s nothing there.” She was glaring at the bioscanner held in her left hand.

Misha didn’t even want to guess the source of her sour expression. He only hoped it wasn’t something she was reading on the scanner.

“They’re _humans_ ,” Jensen said as if it explained everything. “I’m pretty sure they really don’t understand.”

Then again, maybe it did. Misha glanced down at Jensen, a little surprised to hear what sounded like blatant racism coming from Jensen.

But Jensen was looking over Misha’s shoulder, his eyes locked with Katie’s. 

“A few humans would try and come close—” she said.

“But ORDA made _damn_ sure they didn’t have any say,” Jensen finished. His eyes snapped back to Misha’s. “I wish it wasn’t true, but I’m just stating facts. I used to think they were just scared of us, insecure because they had to depend on us for interplanetary travel, distrustful because we have abilities they didn’t understand, maybe a little jealous… it’s all so justifiable.”

“But—” It was Misha’s turn to prompt.

“Now I know the people in charge—they want us all dead,” Jensen answered, his voice flat and stone-cold sober.

“They seek our annihilation,” Katie agreed softly. “They’re genocidal, Misha.” She dropped down in the battered and patched, plaid overstuffed chair and scooted it closer to the couch.

Misha glanced at Katie, then Jensen, and back again. “You’re not just saying that,” he realized. “You know something.”

“It was part of Kane’s message,” Katie answered.

“And a big part of why he killed himself,” Jensen agreed. 

Misha scowled in confusion.

“He figured out the rest of General Lehne’s deal,” Jensen explained.

“The part of the deal the Licinians are now making good on, they’re just spinning it differently and going through new channels,” Katie finished.

“You guys care to clue me in?” Misha asked feeling like the world had suddenly taken a hard turn beneath him leaving him utterly without footing. It was a feeling he should have come to expect before now, but he never expected it to come from Jensen and Katie.

“Remember when we figured out Kane was trying to tell us something, that he had a reason for killing himself, a reason for recanting on his alliance with General Lehne,” Katie asked.

“I remember speculating about that based on the reports of what Kane said, and I remember being surprised no one had figured it out when Jensen and I got back from our alliance-building mission,” Misha recalled, easing further onto the couch when Jensen tugged on his hand.

Jensen was trying to prop himself up to a near-sitting position, which earned him a grunt from Misha, and a pair of assisting hands from Katie. When Jensen was settled, he spoke. “Before they took our symbiotes, Katie and I had a humanitarian mission on M’Nell and we got a tip about a cave.”

“Wait, wait, hold on.” Misha threw up his hands, or rather one hand—he was still holding Jensen’s hand with the other. “You’re still losing me here, what are you guys talking about—in case you’ve forgotten, telepathic communication is still making us all nauseous, so can you try verbalizing whatever you’re trying to tell me?” He was used to Jensen and Katie keeping secrets—much to his dismay as Katie’s CO and Jensen’s husband—it was frustrating, but also a quality he’d come to recognize had its merits. They had theories, suspicions, operating conjectures. Some of them panned out, some didn’t, and _many_ of them seemed to implicate high ranking ORDA officers and liaising government officials. Misha knew they took precautions and precautions upon precautions and extra insurance and quadruple checked everything, and only then did any digging or exploration or _testing_. The secrets gave them all plausible deniability and a few degrees of insulation should anything go wrong. They only clued Misha in when they had hard evidence and he needed to know. This was definitely a _big_ secret, and one they’d been keeping for a while, so Misha had to wonder why he was just hearing about it for the first time in the middle of a last-ditch escape attempt.

“What about bugs?” Katie said, her voice hesitant and barely audible.

“If there are any here, we’re all fucked anyway,” Jensen replied with slightly more volume and confidence. “Besides, we missed out on a chance to tell Misha before, we’ve waited this long—”

“He needs to know,” Katie agreed with a nod. She looked Misha in the eye and inclined her head towards Jensen.

Misha sucked in an involuntary breath when he followed her nod and met Jensen’s eyes. The pallor of illness and signs of exhaustion were still there, but that backbone-of-steel and razor’s edge of intensity were back in Jensen’s eyes, filling his physical presence.

“When we were on M’Nell we were contacted by a refugee who had previously met Kane,” Jensen answered.

“He said he was sorry to hear about Kane’s death because he knew Col. Kane was a conflicted man whose soul bore great burdens and we should follow his directions to a cave—”

“Just out of curiosity were you guys communicating in English, or—”

“Phvanzi,” Katie said, “so this is all an approximate translation, but the concepts actually translate pretty closely. We were wondering what kind of circumstances led to him having a heart-to-heart with Kane, and he was eager to tell us. He gave us directions to a cave.”

“A cave?” Misha asked, unsure where the story was going.

“Yes, a cave,” Jensen replied.

And Misha listened as Katie and Jensen recounted the tale of finding Kane’s message.

“The documents, did you ever get to read them? Do you still have them?” Misha asked.

“I hid them in my symbiote. When we got them back—I’ve been looking at the records all morning, so has Katie,” Jensen explained.

“In addition to the two lists Kane talked about, there was an account of a Phvanzi refugee from the lost colony of Sbelt’ahe,” Jensen explained.

“Like the refugee who tipped you off about the Licinian attack?”

“Different refugee, same group of survivors,” Katie clarified.

Jensen pushed himself up higher on the couch so his back was propped against the junction between the arm and the back. “The account tells the story of what happened to many of the Sbelt’ahai—that’s what the surviving Phvanzi colonists call themselves—who managed to escape before the world died. Many Sbelt’ahai became ill, weak, and started having trouble withstanding travel through microwormholes. Several died during the exodus from Sebh’alte and dozens more died in the months that followed. Even though they’d gone their entire lives using that form of interplanetary transit, they would get onboard a ship only to drop dead or become violently ill when it entered a wormhole.” Jensen was short of breath by the time he finished, so Katie took over.

“The Phvanzi doctors eventually determined 95% of Sbelt’ahai who survived had been infected with a viral agent that rewrote their DNA to make them hypersensitive to the specific gravimetric and quantum forces exerted on a ship during wormhole travel and the precise doses of radiation that made it through their shielding. A closer look led them to conclude it wasn’t a chance encounter with a virus, but a targeted genetically engineered poison.”

Misha’s hand tightened reflexively around Jensen’s. “Genetically engineered—”

Jensen nodded. “Yes, exactly like you’re thinking. The Licinians didn’t want the Sbelt’ahai escaping. They knew the colonists had seen too much and people might start to ask questions.”

“So they engineered genetic changes and a viral delivery vector that should have killed any colonists trying to escape, only the treatment took too long to run its course, and many Sbelt’ahai were able to figure out something was wrong and receive medical attention,” Katie added. “The Licinians also didn’t know the Phvanzi had WMDs that we’d helped design—”

“Off the Licinian model, which doesn’t have the same wormhole signature or radiation profile as a Phvanzi ship traveling by microwormhole,” Jensen finished.

“So if the Licinians did that to the Sbelt’ahai, and they actually got to destroy their planet, why wouldn’t they do that on Earth?” Jensen asked.

“They could actually convert us to humans—” suggested Katie, “cure us.”

“Or give our abilities to humans—so ORDA can go about its business without us,” Jensen said.

_Chapter 11_

Nicki followed Alona into the bedroom and closed the door behind her with a muted ‘thunk.’ She sagged and slid down the door until she was seated on the floor in a defeated slump. She _felt_ defeated anyway. Knees tucked tight against her chest, elbows resting on her knees and arms crossed at the wrist let her head flop back against the door wishing the pain would clear her head, but the momentary twinge did nothing to overwhelm the growing, gnawing swirl of exhaustion and _doom_ inside. She sighed, her eyes flicking over to meet Alona’s where she was perched on the edge of their bed. She looked like she might flee at any moment. “You know, we can’t stay here.”

“We can’t just _leave_ ,” Alona protested, running her hands through her hair and tugging. “I’m—we’re— _lawyers_ , we have responsibilities to clients. We have ethical duties, malpractice… We can’t just _take off_!” She threw her arms outwards in a vague imitation of a bird taking flight before letting them drop, limp, to her sides.

“It’s not like we have a choice,” Nicki gritted out pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes as if that might chase away the images her imagination was so thoughtfully supplying. Alona in handcuffs. Alona chained to a chair. Alona being beaten by an interrogator. Alona in a lab… Alona dead. The thoughts went round and round in circles until she was seeing _herself_ in those scenarios. Nicki swore she could smell the stink of antiseptic layered over death and fear, feel the bite of unforgiving metal at her wrists and ankles, taste sweat mixed with blood, hear her own breath coming in harsh pants. She wished she could dismiss the images as an overreaction, an impossible worst-case scenario, but they were all true, all possible. Now that they knew, now that they understood what Jensen and the others had been through, Nicki couldn’t deny it. There was every possibility that was _exactly_ the fate that awaited Alona—both of them. Nicki wasn’t entirely sure, in part because she didn’t really understand the ins and outs of memory transference yet, but she was pretty sure most of the images were from Jensen’s and Misha’s memories. She was just superimposing Alona’s image over the scenes or inserting herself into them.

“We—” Alona cut herself off, sounding genuinely surprised. 

“Wha—” Nicki started to ask, dropping her hands, but one look answered her question. Disbelief mixed with sudden, shocked understanding was painted all over Alona’s face. Her body seemed suspended, caught in a moment of change and indecision—unmoving and rigid yet somehow clearly collapsed, vanquished. “If we stay it’s not like we’re going to get to continue to work as attorneys or help our clients. If we go, it’s not like we’re going to get to practice law somewhere else. I don’t want to cause anyone harm or prejudice a case, but I don’t think we’re going to have time to worry about malpractice suits and debarment.” She kept her voice even, calm. 

In front of her, Alona seemed to twitch snapping out of her momentary shock. “I don’t have any cases at trial. There’s a calendar on Tuesday... One of the other attorneys—Blaine, Jensen’s replacement—she can handle that. Quality-of-life citations aren’t her area of expertise, but she’s competent to replace me. I can withdraw from the other cases without a judge’s approval, I’ll just tell the clients—” The steady stream of words cut off midsentence. “What will I tell my clients?” she asked Nicki sounding panicked.

“You’ll say as little as possible.” Nicki wished she felt as calm as her voice sounded, wished she could express more open compassion for her wife as she felt her world fall out from underneath her, but Nicki couldn’t summon the strength. 

Nicki had come to terms with the prospect of having her life ripped away from her long ago. Granted, at the time she’d thought her risk came from working on post-conviction appeals and championing the human rights of prisoners (an already unpopular crowd) in very unpopular circumstances at a time when everyone who talked to the “wrong” person or asked the “wrong” question or protested the government running roughshod over civil rights was labeled a “terrorist.” Extraordinary rendition, ‘enhanced’ interrogation, being disappeared—that’s what she’d prepared herself for. And she’d long ago wrestled with the answer for what to do if she had enough notice to flee—run away and hide. It all depended on whether staying and putting her life in the government’s hands would help her clients, help the cause. If it was a strike at her for who she was and what she was trying to do and not tied to a particular client, then she’d try to save herself. The circumstances were different, but the calculus was the same. It mattered surprisingly little that the ‘government’ was actually a planetary consortium and its super-secret military or that the rendition might be to an alien planet or that the torture might involve medical experimentation. She’d made up her mind; she knew the answer, but that did surprisingly little to help with the _fear_ that seemed to be consuming her from within. She needed to be stronger, to help Alona deal— But… 

“I can write a letter to the judge—do I have time to make an appearance? Should I request a conference in the judge’s chambers. No, the clinic can cover everything. But what do I tell them—a family emergency? But after Jensen, will they believe that. Should I change my bar membership to inactive? Or—or do I say I am unfit to practice—maybe depression or a health problem. But I would need a doctor’s note wouldn’t I? Shit! What if we’re not gone that lo—”

“Alona!” Nicki hadn’t meant for it to come out as a shout. She blushed with embarrassment, but felt a wave of relief wash through her. Listening to Alona worrying about contingencies and possibilities that had no chance of happening, no chance of being relevant was its own form of torture.

“What?” Alona asked. She looked as confused as she sounded, and a little _hurt_ , as if Nicki’s shout had stung.

“We can’t do all that. We can’t.” Nicki hoped she would understand, put the pieces together on her own. “We have to disappear. No one can know where we’ve gone. If they’re not sure if we’re hostages, or if we went willingly, all the better. I don’t know if you noticed earlier, but the officer that was here didn’t exactly buy our story. It’s only a matter of time before they come back, and they won’t be so nice about knocking on our doors or bringing warrants next time.”

“You’ve seen this before?” Alona realized.

Nicki nodded. “Didn’t know for sure what it was at first, but I’ve been hearing whispers about ORDA for years.” She let out a bitter bark of laughter. “We used to think they were some kind of immigration boogieman. Maybe a secret arm of DHS that made the folks at ICE look warm and cuddly. Only… they kept on cropping up in cases that had nothing to do with immigration. And I started realizing the people who were disappearing were like me. They _felt_ like me. And sometimes I could feel when they’d gone.” She never would have admitted it, never would have put it in those words before, Jensen had showed up on their doorstep, but that didn’t make it any less true.

“So… we, leave?” Alona asked uncertainly.

“We go where they go. If they run, we run. We’re all in the same boat now.” Nicki wrapped her arms around Alona, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I can’t make up your mind for you, but I don’t want to lose you.”

Slowly Alona collapsed against her, the stress and fear and pent up anxiety of the last few days melting out of her. She started to cry and her tears became sobs, and the sobs grew and grew until Alona was crying silently, her body shaking where Nicki held it to her chest. 

Nicki mourned for her, for them, and the life they had built for themselves that they were going to let slip away. She’d made her peace with it years ago when she’d first realized there was something out there in the shadows, disappearing people pulling impossible rabbits out of its hat. But it didn’t stop her from feeling the loss afresh. So she cried with Alona, rocking her back and forth, until they couldn’t cry anymore.

“I’m ready,” Alona whispered.

~~~

Jensen noticed that once Alona and Nicki made the decision to run, the atmosphere in the house was much lighter than it had been when they first arrived. They were unified in purpose, resolved to get out, spread the word, and save as many Naiians as possible—their families included, if possible.

They still didn’t decide on a course of action fast enough—ORDA forced their hand.

“They’re here,” Roberts announced, wide-eyed.

Jensen could feel it too, the prickle of something wrong, screaming “danger, danger, danger,” in the back of his mind. Nebulous and diffuse, it was nowhere near as clear as the presence of a fellow Naiian, but discernible nonetheless. And it was coming at them from all sides.

“How can you tell?” Genevieve asked. “Do they have... are there Naiians with them? Helping them?” _Betraying us_ , remained unspoken.

“No,” Jensen said with a shake of his head as his eyes slipped closed. He could just make it out if he delved deeper, stretching out, reaching... _There._ “They’re humans,” he said as the presence he sensed began to coalesce into something meaningful. There were dots, one glowing brighter than the rest, but all familiar, around the dots swirled something similar to another Naiian, but not quite. “They’ve got WMDs, one of them is a symbiote, and the people...” He flinched as his mind brushed up against the familiar shape and feel of a symbiote. “One of them’s got a symbiote.”

Across the room, Misha shuddered. “The rest of them have regular WMDs.”

“Wait, wait, a symbiote?” Alona asked, springing from her seat on the couch and taking a step toward Jensen. Nicki squeezed her hand tight, keeping her tethered to the couch so she couldn’t pace across the room. Her head was cocked sideways, like she was trying to see under his belt. 

And he realized she was, not staring at his belt, but at what was tucked under his shirt, pressed against his skin.

“Yeah, like that,” Jensen answered, his hand pressing reflexively against his side, his chest unclenching when he felt the familiar weight.

“But, why?” Nicki asked, her left hand joining her right in clasping Alona’s hand. “Why use a symbiote? I thought they saw them as a risk or an abomination—if someone uses one they could bond to it, and then they’re just stuck loosing someone else, right? Why risk someone’s life if they don’t have to?”

“But how are they doing this at all? You said they’re human,” Genevieve protested.

“Hormones, pheromones, and neurotransmitters,” Katie murmured.

Jensen whipped around to look at her. His heart froze when he saw the distant haunted look in her eyes.

“They hacked us,” Harris supplied. 

“What?” Alona asked, her voice almost comically high. 

“They figured out how our minds interact with symbiotes sixty-five years ago.”

Now everyone was looking at Harris.

“Not everything; they missed some stuff, misunderstood others, but they did that, and they’ve been figuring out which chemical does what, what makes us tick, right? Well, they’ve put the pieces together and dosed up a bunch of humans so they can use WMDs.”

Jensen gulped, suddenly nauseous. “I think that’s— When they took me, that was one of the things they were trying to figure out. Do you think they... experimented—”

“Vivisected,” Misha spat.

“—someone else?” Jensen finished. He was reminded again of the tale of the refugee from Sebh’alte again, wondering if they were seeing history repeat itself.

Now everyone in the room was looking decidedly green and Misha and Katie were sharing glance filled with so much doom and fear, Jensen didn’t want to contemplate what it might mean.

“Or they’ve had help,” Roberts suggested.

“From one of us?” Jared asked, his tone as horrified as his expression.

“Licinians,” Harris and Jensen realized the same time.

Harris nodded. “It would make sense, explain the rapid advancement in biotech—”

“Not to mention the about-face policy-wise,” Jensen said with a snort.

“And we know there are a lot of factions out there,” Jensen concluded.

“Factions of evil aliens, _factions_ of a super-secret world-wide military organization. Sounds like a fucking soap opera,” Nicki muttered.

“She hates soap operas,” Alona added in bitter explanation. 

“I think I might know why they’re using a symbiote,” Roberts said softly 

“Why?” Jensen asked aloud, though he didn’t need to. He could feel them _everywhere_ from all directions pressing in...

“They sent an army after us, and... we’re surrounded,” Roberts answered.

“So much for plan A,” Misha muttered as Alona asked, “What do we do now?”

“We do what we’re best at,” Jensen resolved with a nod.

“We use wormholes,” Katie agreed.

“But, but they can track them. You said—” Alona exclaimed, exasperated and in shock.

“But they’re our only way out. Being followed on the run is still better than stuck here as sitting ducks,” Misha agreed. He turned to Alona and Nicki. “Last chance to back out?”

“Like we have another choice!” Nicki pointed out, rising to stand beside Alona.

“You can claim we held you hostage and that you have no idea where we’re going. If you don’t come with us, that will be true, and it’s not like you invited us over here,” Misha suggested.

“But what then?” Alona asked. “We just stay here and pretend we don’t know anything? Looking over our shoulder all the time, knowing what they’re doing to people like us? Would they even believe us? Would they care?”

“No.” It was Nicki who answered, and the conviction and understanding in her voice answered a question that had been pinging around Jensen’s mind for a long time. She knew what ORDA was capable of. She’d seen it first-hand. “It’s too big a risk. Chances are, we’ve been exposed to the secrets they’re trying to keep hidden. They can’t let us go, so they’ll have to disappear us. Then they’ll test us and they’ll realize we’re both Naiians. So we’ll wind up missing or dead, just like all the others.” She looked up, staring Jensen directly in the eye. “I’ve seen it happen to my clients, to their families, to witnesses. For _years_ before I realized who they were, I saw the effects. Even if, by some miracle, they didn’t test us, didn’t take us, they’d watch us every second of every day for the rest of our lives. We’d never be free. One mistake, one clue, and it would be over.” She turned to Alona, gazing up into her face, her voice cracking to match the tears that were forming in Alona’s eyes. “I didn’t become a lawyer to hide out like a coward or live under someone’s thumb. I became a lawyer to help people. To fight for justice, seek truth, and be the voice my clients need. I know...” she squeezed Alona’s hand tighter. “I know you did the same thing. But if we stay here, we can’t do that anymore. We can’t serve our clients. We can’t be honest with ourselves.” A single tear rolled down her cheek.

Alona reached out with her left hand and brushed it away, her touch lingering, and Nicki leaned into it. Alona’s hand now cupped her cheek. “I know,” she said. 

Understanding passed between them, agreement, unspoken. Then the moment was over, and Nicki turned away. “We’re in. For the long haul, whatever you need.”

“Jump as far as we can?” Harris asked, standing, her voice steadier than her legs.

Roberts and Misha both scowled. 

“I’m trying that,” Misha admitted, “I can open a wormhole offworld, but, nothing else.”

“Already tried it,” Roberts said sounding discouraged.

“What?” Alona asked.

“Something’s blocking us. It’s like... there’s no _there_ there,” Roberts admitted. “Every time I try to get a lock, it’s like the aperture just...”

“Slides,” she and Misha said together, sharing a glance.

“What the— owww,” Aldis winced, hand at his waist. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Stomach sinking like it had lurched over the hill of a rollercoaster; Jensen knew what he would encounter, even before he reached out to open the wormhole. Sure enough, when he tried to connect an aperture in the vicinity of Tacoma, he felt the too-familiar bounce and slide of the wormhole intersecting a jamming field. He reached out in other directions and kept bumping into the same thing. Surely ORDA couldn’t have jammed _everywhere_. No, he could _open the wormhole, but it just wouldn’t connect anywhere he tried to point it. “They’re jamming us,” he said aloud._

“But they had to get here somehow? What if we try farther away?” Harris suggested.

“Too risky,” Misha countered, “at least without more intel. Could be perfectly safe to open an aperture to Texas, could mean they’re already waiting for us there. With us still recovering, and almost half of us without symbiotes…”

“We could leave the planet. Interplanetaries are far easier to open and harder to track,” Roberts offered.

“Once we leave, we’re not getting back,” Katie said solemnly. “We exit Earth now, we leave everyone behind.”

“I’m not hearing a lot of options here,” Harris protested, crossing her arms.

“They had to come from somewhere.”

“What?” Harris asked.

“They—the ORDA troops—had to come from somewhere,” Jensen repeated. “They weren’t there a minute ago, so they didn’t just drive up and gradually approach.”

“One minute there was nothing, the next minute… them,” Katie agreed.

“So they opened a wormhole from somewhere. We go _there_ ,” Jensen suggested. 

“It’s probably somewhere guarded; we’d be walking into their waiting arms!” Harris countered.

“Or maybe they left themselves enough open space that we’ve got something to work with. We open lots of decoy wormholes and lose them in the scramble to follow,” he added, looking to Misha for approval. “Ow, I got a lock, but you’re not going to like it.”

“Why?” Alona asked.

“Because it’s back in the U District, right by ORDA headquarters,” Katie replied. “Feels like everything in their quarantine zone is open, probably so ORDA personnel can move around.”

Misha glanced around the room taking in each of them in turn. “Grab your packs and buddy up.” 

The crash of breaking glass echoed through the living room.

“We’re out of time, let’s go!” Misha shouted as Jensen and the others darted around the room grabbing their belongings.

Jensen’s pack was ready and in the living room. For that, he would be eternally grateful. Sending a surge of love towards Misha, he shouldered his pack and ran, grabbing Nicki as he passed. “Come on, you’re with me. Misha’s getting Alona, and they’ll be alright.”

_Continued in part 2_


	2. Part 2

_Chapter 12_

The aperture closed behind them with a resounding snap, and suddenly he and Nicki were standing alone in a dark, smelly alleyway. His knees wobbled, but he didn’t fall. He eased the symbiote back into its pouch at his waist.

Nicki took a step sideways as they exited the wormhole, looking unsettled and shocked. Her foot caught the neck of a discarded beer bottle, and tripped her feet so they tangled in an overstuffed garbage bag that had spilled out of a nearby dumpster. She caught herself against the brick wall, letting out a surprised grunt. The bottle went skittering away, spinning like a top until it clanged against the dumpster. Nicki’s eyes were wide and white in the dim streetlight, shining almost as bright as the collar of her shirt.

Shit! They hadn’t even had time to change clothes. Jensen was lucky to be wearing boots, jeans, and a dark blue Henley—it wasn’t ideal, definitely not the kind of attire ORDA would have sent him into the field wearing, but at least he wasn’t reflective. Nicki, on the other hand, was wearing exactly the wrong outfit for the situation. Her suit pants were restrictive and not designed for running. Her shirt had a white collar and cuffs that shone like a beacon in almost any light, and her boots, while by no means stilettos, had no traction and small, square, heels that clicked and echoed as she walked.

“That was...” Nicki started, wide eyed. “You and Misha, you do that all the time?”

Jensen shrugged. “My first time, I took Misha’s entire car through a wormhole, caused an explosion, and took out half a block of bushes on Pacific.”

“That, that was you?” Nicki gasped, pointing at Jensen with one hand, while the other jumped to cover her open mouth. “I mean, I knew there was something going on, but I didn’t—”

The distinctive whoosh of an aperture opening sounded behind them. 

They both whirled around, Jensen’s hand going to his hip and pulling his XDm compact from its holster. He leveled the gun with his right hand while grabbing Nicki’s arm with his left. But there was no one there. He heard the snap of the wormhole closing and the low murmur of voices. They were a block over. 

Beside him, Nicki, sighed in relief, her body sagging against him.

But their reprieve was short lived, as he heard two more apertures open. One was farther away, but the other sounded like it was right behind them.

Jensen crouched and spun, pulling Nicki with him. 

By luck, the exit aperture was between them and the R team ORDA had sent, and the two people who had cleared the wormhole had their backs turned, otherwise they would have been fucked.

Jensen managed to pull them into a crouch beside the dumpster, using it as cover to conceal their position. It wouldn’t last for long. The R team would search the alley, and a smallish green dumpster would not keep them hidden. They could open another wormhole, but with their pursuers so close and able to track them, opening a wormhole would be tantamount to suicide.

Then again, getting caught wouldn’t exactly prolong their lives either.

They had to run.

In his crouch, Jensen rose to the balls of his feet, preparing to run. He tapped Nicki’s arm, put his index finger to his lips, and then pointed down the alley behind them. There was a good chance they’d run into one of the other R teams, but it was better than being sitting ducks.

He waited for the _snap_ of the aperture closing and set off at a hunched-over sprint with Nicki hot on his heels.

They almost got away cleanly, but when they reached the next intersection, Jensen stuck his head around the corner to find the first R team congregated there. He whipped back around the corner and pressed Nicki back against the brick wall of the closest building. “R team,” he whispered. Seeing her confused stare he clarified, “Reconnaissance team.” Although these guys were decked out in full battle gear, armed to kill. 

Nicki gave a relieved sigh and sagged back into the wall, taking another step backwards in an attempt to conceal herself further. The heel of her boot hit a discarded plastic takeout container as she set her foot down. The crack and crunch echoed in the silent night, as clear and loud as a gunshot. Nicki froze, her foot hovering an inch above the ground her face a mask of guilt and terror. 

Jensen held his breath, not daring to hope the noise had gone unnoticed. Thanks to ORDA’s crackdown and quarantine, there was nothing else to mask the sound. No cars, no people, no busses, no one with a legitimate reason to be on the streets.

And the two nearby R teams were drawn to the noise like moths to the flame.

“Shit!” Jensen swore under his breath. A split-second of indecision and he was taking Nicki by the arm and dragging her backwards around the corner, putting the building between them and the second R team, and himself between Nicki and the first. He brought his sidearm up and started firing one-handed even as he pulled Nicki backwards, carefully counting each trigger pull and wishing he at least had the full-size mag loaded. Right about now he’d give almost anything for a rifle or even a handgun with a larger capacity. He’d counted six people in the second R team and there were eight more in the first. Fourteen heavily armed ORDA troops against Jensen and Nicki with one 9mm between them... and Jensen only had 14 shots before he had to reload. He thought of the two extra mags holstered in his belt for a grand total of 38 extra rounds and he cringed, wishing desperately for a tac vest or some roomy cargo pockets full of extra ammo. Speaking of vests... Jensen hadn’t been wearing his protective vest when the attack came. He didn’t want to think too closely about what it meant about him that he had trained himself to never go around unarmed, but he still resisted and forgot the vest—the one thing that could perhaps protect him the most.

“Check behind us,” he shouted to Nicki over the near deafening cacophony as he opened fire.

“Clear! For now,” she shouted back. There was no point in whispering when everyone in the U District could hear the battle going on.

Running backwards wasn’t easy, even with Nicki leading him, but he couldn’t risk turning his back on their pursuers. If he had to, they could open a wormhole and get out of there. ORDA would be on them again in a heartbeat with more reinforcements and heavier weaponry. So he wanted to delay that as much as possible.

They’d gotten lucky. Jensen’s decision to throw them into the fray had taken the first R team by surprise. His initial barrage had scored three hits, probably not fatal, since he was shooting 9mm hollow points and the R teams were wearing body armor, but it was enough to knock them down, and as those three had fallen, they’d temporarily taken two of their compatriots with them—one got tangled in the others’ limbs as they fell; the other followed them willingly, probably the team medic checking on his or her teammates’ wounds.

The second R team came bowling around the corner showing far more mindless urgency than calculated restraint, probably the result of an inexperienced—or bloodthirsty—commander. Jensen had hoped for that, counted on it, even. With the Naiians in ORDA dead, dying, missing, or imprisoned, that left a lot of vacancies in the ranks. There were many bitter, hateful, and inexperienced officers eager to prove themselves waiting to fill the power vacuum left behind. 

As the second R team charged into the intersection, there were a few seconds of confusion where the two R teams had trouble distinguishing friend and foe. They sorted it out, but not before two members of the second team had opened fire on the first, hitting one of the officers, who was already down with a Falligarian stunner blast, and striking one of the officers, who was still standing, with P90 fire. The first team returned fire more out of reflex than anything else, hitting two of the members of the second team. 

A part of Jensen cringed at the friendly fire, just as part of him revolted at shooting fellow ORDA officers. But this was about survival—for him, for Nicki, for every other Naiian out there, and everyone who cared about them. It also wasn’t the first time he’d been forced to kill people who were supposed to be on his side. Even thinking about the kidnapping and the days he’d spent being used as a laboratory experiment, not to mention his recent brush with death, was enough to override any hesitation.

The friendly fire incident gave Jensen and Nicki enough time to cover most of the block, with Jensen running sideways and squeezing off another five shots while the R teams were still screaming at each other to hold their fire and hammer out the chain of command. _Fucking amateurs_ , he thought, fully aware of the irony.

Jensen almost let himself get lost in relief. If they could make it around the corner, they’d have another chance to hide, to disappear, to lose their pursuers. They were almost there...

Of course, the moment Jensen thought that, he kicked himself. Superstitious or not, it always seemed to be a surefire way to invite trouble. 

The whoosh of the aperture opening was almost lost in the gunfire.

“Uh, Jensen, it’s not clear anymore,” Nicki shouted, voice shaky.

The back of Jensen’s neck prickled, and he had the unsettling sensation of _recognizing_ someone, only not quite... Like his mind was brushing up against someone he used to know and finding them... changed. Mixed up and rearranged, then stuffed back inside with some of the pieces missing, inexpertly excised, carved out, and set back in the world with people supposed to be none the wiser. Nausea roiled in Jensen’s stomach, and it had nothing to do with the prospect of facing yet another R team. The mind he’d touched used to be Naiian, only now, somehow, it wasn’t. 

Jensen was turning his head to see if he could tell who it was, when he heard the whine of a plasma rifle charging.

“Get down!” he screamed at Nicki even as he yanked her to the ground. They had to get out of here now. There was no more waiting. Jensen didn’t even bring his hand to his symbiote. All he had to do was _think_ about the wormhole and where he needed it to go, and it opened. He and Nicki fell into the aperture as they reached the ground.

And not a moment too soon... Jensen watched a plasma burst sail overhead, cutting through the air where they’d just been.

“Oof!” Nicki grunted as they exited the aperture and landed, bounced a little and rolled.

Jensen blinked, and realized was face to face with the frame of a swing set. Centimeters to the left and he would have smacked into it, hard.

“Where the fuck—”

“Playground on 50th,” Jensen panted. “But not for long,” he added with a grunt, as he rolled to a crouch, pulling Nicki up with him. His mind was working three steps ahead, but they’d already lingered too long. He concentrated on the next wormhole, and its two decoys, knowing it should theoretically be possible. After all, nothing said there was a one-to-one-to-one relationship between individual, symbiote, and open wormholes. Just because ORDA thought it was that way meant no one had really tried. And ORDA was _always_ so right, just like they’d been about intraplanetary wormholes, telepathy, wormhole tracking, and most other “rules” and “truths” they taught their officers and other personnel. Sure enough, the wormholes opened, one, two, three. “In the first one,” Jensen managed, his voice cracking under the strain.

Nicki nodded and dove into the wormhole headfirst. 

A handful of steps behind her, Jensen stepped partly into the wormhole, holding the other two open. In front of him the ground shimmered, taking on a purple-blue sheen. A wormhole! Either they had incredibly bad luck, or the third R team had already followed them there. Jensen stepped through the rest of the way, closing the wormhole behind him with a snap. He held the other two a split second longer, before letting them snap shut.

Nicki blinked at him in amazement, “How—”

“In a minute,” Jensen said, he was already opening more wormholes, one, two, three, four, five... He focused on points as far apart as he could manage inside the jamming-free bubble—halfway across the University bridge, the top of the University Village parking garage, the ambulance bay at UW Medical Center, the freeway bus stop on 45th street, the center of the Quad on the main university campus. Each one he held a few seconds then let it close. When they’d all closed, he turned to Nicki and motioned, “Come on,” he wheezed, and set off at a run.

He’d pulled them out of the wormhole at Brooklyn and 42nd, not that far from their last location, but at least a block in each direction from likely ORDA guard posts. It was also convenient to Jensen’s ulterior goals.

“What the hell—” Nicki hissed in a whisper, running on her tiptoes to avoid making noise.

“I’m hoping the team that’s tracking us and whatever backup they bring will think we went through one of those wormholes and waste time trying to track us, giving us time to get away. Or at least a head start.” Jensen stopped to peek around the corner. There were LEOs on guard, but their jackets proclaimed them to be a mix of Homeland Security and FBI, not ORDA, and their backs were turned. Jensen reflexively used hand signals to convey what he saw, realizing belatedly Nicki probably wouldn’t understand.

To his surprise, she seemed to think for a moment, then nodded. He raised an eyebrow in question, but Nicki just nodded more decisively.

Jensen checked around the corner again, confirmed the feds were still absorbed in discussion, and gave the signal. He and Nicki sprinted across the exposed intersection, losing themselves in the shadows as soon as they were on the sidewalk again. They made it to the Starbucks on the corner in no time, only when they got there, Jensen found himself panting, his legs tingling with the threat of numbness. It really shouldn’t surprise him. For the past three weeks he’d been deathly ill or recovering, his lungs and major muscle groups taking a pounding. It was no wonder that he’d be easily winded. 

But ORDA wasn’t about to give him a head start to accommodate his condition either. 

“You okay?” Nicki whispered, laying a hand gently on his arm.

Jensen shrugged. “I’m gonna have to be.” 

“Where are we going?” she asked.

So many options. So many vital elements of a plan that were missing, disrupted. “We need clothes.” He looked down at Nicki’s feet. “You need shoes.”

Nicki followed his gaze and shrugged. “I’m so—”

Jensen held up his hand. “Don’t be, but you can’t run around on tiptoe all night. That’s a great way to get injured.” He didn’t have to say they couldn’t afford to get injured. Chances were Katie had shoved basic first aid kits in their backpacks, but the supplies wouldn’t go far, especially if he and Nicki were on their own for any extended period of time. 

“Where?” Nicki asked. They were creeping up the “Ave” now, sticking to the shadows, and darting between pools of light.

Jensen had never seen University Way so deserted. There were no punks, hipsters, or drunk college students in sight. Pizza Time and the Gyros place, always open into the wee hours of the morning were shuttered and deserted. Even the doorways were clear. There wasn’t a homeless person or sleeping bag in sight. It reminded Jensen of post-apocalyptic scenarios in videogames—and of actual war zones he’d visited on other planets. Entire neighborhoods, deserted and quarantined, placed under martial law. Here. On Earth. In the United States. It was a human and civil rights abuse of enormous magnitude, making the WTO riots or any crackdown the SPD had in response to the Occupy protests look positively liberal. 

And it was all to catch _them._

Jensen shook himself, refocusing on the here and now, on Nicki still waiting for an answer. “I’m weighing options,” Jensen said at last.

“What, American Apparel or Buffalo Exchange?” Nicki half-kidded.

“More like conventional break-in or wormhole.”

“We might avoid alarms if we used a wormhole, right?” Nicki asked.

“We might, but we’d have R teams on our asses in a couple of seconds.” Jensen glanced at Nicki. “On the other hand, a break-in is going to attract the local cops.”

“But I thought ORDA had taken over command of everything.”

“Since when have local cops ever liked feds or military telling them how to do their jobs?”

“True,” Nicki observed. “You’re hoping they’ll start a pissing contest over who gets to investigate a break-in?”

“I’m hoping,” Jensen said with a nod. “Maybe they’ll think it’s kids acting out against the quarantine and curfew, and try to put their foot down. Force ORDA to share a little more.”

“And that buys us time,” Nicki realized.

“Now you’re getting it,” Jensen murmured. 

Nicki took another step, her heel clicking against an up-thrust square of concrete in the sidewalk. They both froze, shrinking back into the shadows.

Two blocks away, they could hear another aperture close and voices almost-yelling, loud enough they could almost make out the words. “You need shoes,” Jensen observed again, his voice barely audible.

Nicki hooked a thumb at the European shoe store behind them.

Jensen shook his head. “We need one stop shopping. I’m thinking sporting goods.” 

Minutes later, Jensen was jimmying the locks on the main door off the two-story sporting goods store, hoping he hadn’t made the wrong call. He had heard three more apertures open and close since they’d run to the Ave. He couldn’t tell if it was one R team moving around or three different teams, and he didn’t want to get close enough to find out. As it was, they’d only avoided detection by the second team by slipping into the narrow space between two buildings and grabbing onto the bottom of a fire escape. They’d held themselves in the shadows until the team passed by. Jensen had been waiting with bated breath since then, half-expecting an ORDA officer to be hiding in the bushes, waiting to pounce on Jensen and Nicki when they least expected it.

“Jensen, maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Nicki whispered, wrapping her arms around herself to ward off the midnight chill. A light breeze had crept up in the last half hour making the temperature drop further. She had folded her collar into her shirt and rolled up her cuffs to hide them, but she had no protection against the cold.

“I agree it’s not ideal,” Jensen mumbled around the lock pick held in his teeth.

“I’m pretty sure Alona’s got some spare clothes, maybe even shoes at the office. I’m pretty sure they’d fit me, and I have a key. We wouldn’t even have to break in or steal,” whispered Nicki.

Jensen sat back on his heels, steadying himself with one hand braced on the security gate he was picking. It was tempting—Alona’s office, his old office, was only a few blocks away. They’d come close to it several times already tonight, but Jensen had been careful to avoid it. “Nicki, we can’t. We can’t go back to Alona’s office, or your office, or anyone’s homes because those are the first places they’ll look for us. They have it surrounded. If we tried to get there using a wormhole, we’d be stepping out face to face with the barrel of a rifle. We can’t go back.”

Even in the dim light, he could see Nicki’s face fall as reality finally sank in. The determination in her eyes faltered for a moment, but then it surged back. “How come they can track us so quickly? Didn’t you use a wormhole to visit Alona once? They didn’t track that!”

Jensen’s mouth twisted into a rueful expression stuck somewhere between a grimace and a grin. “No, they didn’t, and it’s kind of my fault—well, mine and Katie’s—that they can.” He almost regretted ever investigating the ability to track wormholes, but then again, he’d be dead several times over, and all of Earth would be lost. 

“Earth was under attack,” he explained, “and the bad guys were popping up everywhere, and no one could figure out how they were moving around. I had an idea, and Katie and I figured out how to locate and track wormhole apertures. But we kept it quiet, because we didn’t trust ORDA. Then I got kidnapped, and the only way for Misha to find me in time was to use the tracking algorithms.”

“So ORDA found out about it,” Nicki deduced.

“It was an official mission, and it saved my life. They were going to dissect my brain.”

“I’m sorry—” 

“You don’t have to be,” Jensen said calmly. He was genuinely at peace with it. “The tracking algorithms saved the world. The people who tortured me thought they were saving their own lives.”

“You’re serious,” Nicki realized as she crouched beside Jensen.

“About saving the world? Yeah.” Jensen shrugged.

Nicki’s mouth twisted into a rueful smile. “No, I got that part. I mean about the people thinking they were saving themselves.”

For a split second, Jensen was back in the cave on Alcynon listening to Kane before he shot Jared, hearing the desperation in his voice. Then he was on M’Nell, hearing Kane try to explain, seeing the terror in his eyes. “Yeah...” he whispered, then with more certainty, “yeah. For a lot of them. Some were just bigots, some jealous, and a few people didn’t see us as human.” Which they weren’t but... “Like we weren’t sentient.”

“And the people who are doing this now?”

“Mostly the last two, from what I can tell.” Jensen admitted. “Thing is, the tracking tech? They’ve improved it since Katie and I developed it.” The lock clicked open. 

“Improved how?” Nicki asked suddenly nervous.

“That’s what we don’t quite know.” Jensen admitted. “Ok, here goes nothing.” He pushed open the gate and waited. Nothing happened. “Probably a silent alarm. Under normal circumstances, standard response time is 2 minutes, 20 seconds.” He glanced around nervously, expecting to hear the telltale crackle of a wormhole aperture, but heard nothing. “Question is will ORDA slow them down, or show up first?”

Shrugging in uncertainty, Nicki whispered, “I guess we’ll just have to be quick.”

Jensen agreed with a nod, and they set off inside, creeping silently across the dark, deserted, carpeted interior. “We should split up. You get clothes; I’ll find some shoes.”

“Got it,” Nicki answered. Her eyes flashed with uncertainty, but it left as quickly as it appeared. “I wear a size six and a half,” she added as Jensen turned towards the stopped escalators that led upstairs towards the shoe department. 

Jensen paused, his hand on the black rubber handrail, “Grab extras if you can.” He didn’t wait for Nicki’s answer, but set off up the stationary escalator taking the steps two at a time. They’d already wasted too much time. His legs were burning again when he reached the top, cursing at the building’s design. Each floor was easily two standard. stories tall. He narrowly avoided tripping on the short steps at the top and pelted across the floor like a cloud of TYngai were chasing him. He cringed as soon as he thought it; it would be just their luck for a bunch of slicks to show up in the middle of this mess and add the problems of communication with inorganic sentients to their troubles. 

“Shoes, shoes,” Jensen muttered to himself, looking overhead for the signs as he dodged around display tables, squinting to read in the dim light. Streetlights streamed in through the few small windows adding to the dull, flat light of the emergency lighting that kicked in after hours, but Jensen didn’t dare locate a light switch or shoplift a flashlight, knowing it would only draw the authorities to him faster. He almost missed it, he was running so fast. He doubled back around an end cap of tennis balls before setting off down the correct aisle.

He took another misstep towards the Men’s shoes before remembering he was getting shoes for Nicki, who had tiny feet, and couldn’t find shoes that fit in the Men’s department even if she wanted to. Finally he was facing aisles of tennis shoes, basketball shoes, cross-trainers, running shoes, and more. He followed the large print number signs until he was in front of the six-and-a-halves. _Finally!_ Only there wasn’t a black shoe in sight. White, silvery reflective, colors and decals and patterns he could only assume were things like colorful stripes and flowers... A few pairs were so luridly pink, they made him think of Dolores Umbridge. 

He started to panic. Close to two minutes had passed already. He started pawing at the shelves, looking, searching. He stood on tiptoes, then crouched down low. Until finally, the next row over... _There_ —a half-size too big but they would have to do—Jensen found two pairs of charcoal grey Sketchers and a pair of basic black Keds. _They’ll have to do._ Not sure what would fit, Jensen grabbed all three. He slipped his right shoulder out of the backpack strap and swung the bag around, tugging open the drawstring even as he dropped to one knee. With the bag resting on the ground, he began dumping the shoes into it. He had the first two pairs inside and the third in hand when he heard it.

The static thump of an aperture opening. ORDA was here and they were inside. 

Jensen’s first instinct was to run; run or open his own wormhole but...

And now the brief flash of doubt in Nicki’s eyes made sense. ORDA was in the building, and he and Nicki were separated. He could get out of there, but Nicki didn’t have a symbiote or even an Earth-made WMD. Maybe he could take an aperture outside and get around the R team that way? So far he’d only heard one. Maybe he could sneak around them and lead Nicki out?

“This is the FBI. We have the building surrounded. Come out with your hands up!”

“There goes that idea,” Jensen muttered under his breath. He’d been near panicking before, but he couldn’t afford to panic now. Everything snapped into crystal-clear focus. Jensen had trained for this. He’d never set out to be _that guy_ , well maybe in his day dreams, but like it or not, he knew how to function under this kind of pressure. He’d had the same training, maybe more, than the R team, and he had _experience_. Something at least a few of them probably lacked.

With his newfound focus, Jensen drew into himself, settled, and took stock of his surroundings. 

The R team was on the second floor. They’d entered at the other end of the store from Jensen, but they were advancing rapidly, moving in twos. Four pairs. Eight on the team. All of them human with that unsettling something... different. The discordant feeling of Naiian biochemistry synthesized and forced trough human veins. It was just enough to trick his mind into trying to reach out, to connect, only to find an impenetrable wall. Darkness. None of them were the mind he’d touched before. 

There was one thing Jensen was grateful for. In their slap-dash attempt to get humans using wormhole tech, ORDA had missed the big picture once more. They’d given their officers just enough to control wormholes, but nothing else. Jensen doubted they could even make a biofeedback loop work... but why would they need to? They were using human-made tech, which had different safeties built in. Not, Jensen now understood, because the team designing them hadn’t figured out what combination of neurotransmitters made it work, but because the design team had enough sense to know which secrets not to trust to ORDA. At least for now, Jensen didn’t have to worry about them reading his mind.

With just one team there, the store was big enough he might be able to evade them for a while. _Hope they don’t have any scanners with them._

He crept forward, sliding his backpack onto both shoulders, staying low to the ground. When he got to the end of the aisle, he peered around the corner. Two ORDA officers were approaching, their dull black uniforms blending into the background as they moved. The light filtering in from the streetlights reflected off the barrels of their P90s just enough to let Jensen track them. They were searching, looking high and low, and Jensen waited until both sets of night vision goggles were turned away from him to throw himself across the gap. He edged around a table display holding boxed volleyballs, an eye towards the officers the whole time. He almost missed the other pair, walking down an aisle parallel to the one he’d just exited, but he saw heard their approach just in time. Dashing around the table, Jensen tucked himself into a ball and pressed back against the display, heart pounding in his chest. Had they seen him? 

Jensen held his breath, counted to five, ten, fifteen, listening, tuning out the blood hammering in his ears—but there was nothing. He could make out the click of a radio, but not what was said. The footsteps didn’t come any closer. 

Jensen was hidden for now, but he couldn’t stay there for long. He still had to find Nicki. Calming himself again, Jensen let out a long, measured breath, and reached out. He found Nicki’s mind in an instant and connected with it easily. He was a little surprised. They hadn’t exactly gotten to teach Nicki and Alona much in the short time they’d been holed up together. Then again...

Nicki was a very strong, natural-born Naiian, and Jensen had long held a suspicion that she’d been using her abilities without instruction or context for a long time. 

_Took you long enough_ , was Nicki’s snarky reply when Jensen connected with her. There was fear and anxiety, but not panic. And it eased considerably the moment she “heard” from Jensen. _I’ve been trying to get your attention for the last two minutes._

 _Sorry_ , Jensen replied sheepishly. _I kinda had my hands full._

_Tell me about it. I’ve got two of them down here playing cat and mouse._

Jensen could almost hear the chuckle in Nicki’s “voice,” and he’d be willing to bet the R team was unwittingly playing the role of “mouse.” 

_Can you get up here?_ He thought he heard Nicki grunt.

_No. They’ve got a team at the top of the escalators covering the lobby._

By the escalators? Jensen whipped his head around to the right. Sure enough, two of the ORDA officers were standing guard, M16s covering the store lobby. He glanced to his other side, checking around the display and half crawling to the one beside it. He couldn’t see either of the first two pairs from here, but he could feel them—one moving towards him, one away. At least there was more distance between him and the team covering the escalators. _They weren’t there a minute ago._

 _No, they weren’t_ , Nicki confirmed. That’s what all the, uh, mental grunting was about.

Jensen was greeted with the image of Nicki trying to cross the foyer, only to belatedly see the team and nearly trip in her effort to retreat. She’d landed hard and dove around a circular clothes rack for cover. _They didn’t see me_ , she communicated reassuringly. 

But Jensen could tell it was a near thing. 

_I’d rather not do that again. Is there another way up?_

The elevator, but that... _Not really an option_ , Jensen relayed. _Any chance the feds were lying about having the building surrounded?_

 _Um, well they were lying about being FBI. Some of them might be, but there are far more intimidating initials out there and a pissed off sheriff’s deputy or two, and they definitely have us surrounded. I read the great, big reflective letters on their jackets when they walked by the window_ , she explained.

Jensen cursed inwardly. He’d known it was a longshot, but still... He reached out farther, and felt the mass of people swarming around the building. “Shit,” he whispered. It took a few seconds to sort out what he was feeling, especially because there were apartments above most of the businesses on the block, and the residents were still trapped inside. But... If he was interpreting it correctly, there were snipers on the rooftops and... probably cops in riot gear approaching from either end of the block. One of them was Naiian and didn’t know it. _Fuck!_

_Jensen, what is it?_

He considered lying to her, but Nicki would know. She was too naturally talented a telepath. _Snipers, riot gear, roadblocks, and... One of them is one of us._

_Guess that means they haven’t started testing the LEOs, yet._

_You think they’re..._ but Jensen didn’t complete the thought. They both knew what ORDA would do with a captive audience and a mission. All those people who lived in the quarantine area or otherwise trapped in it were being tested. Any Naiians they identified were rounded up and... being jailed? Eliminated? Watched so ORDA could bide out time and decide to swoop in and take them away at a later time? For a moment, Jensen thought he might be sick. Dizziness washed through him. How could they ever save everyone? How could they ever leave anyone behind?

_I’ll warn him; you figure out how the hell to get us out of here. And yes, I’m sure._

Jensen sent a wave of gratitude and acknowledgement Nicki’s way and refocused on finding a solution. 

While he’d been distracted, two of the pairs had gotten close. They were coming from different directions, moving in to trap him. Or just getting lucky, because Jensen had no doubt they’d have blasted the hell out of the display and him with it. But...

But if he timed his movements just right he could circle the display and run to the next one, keeping part of the structure between him and them at all times. One... two... three... and he was moving. 

He tucked himself around the display, now down by the corner of the store, where the railing ringing the open foyer took a 90-degree turn. He had the distinct sense they were boxing him into a corner, but for the moment, his hiding spot provided him a better vantage point on the pair guarding the escalator. He was taking another peek at it when the voice almost made him give himself away.

“Captain Jensen Ackles.” 

Jensen jumped, flinching and falling back against the display. He couldn’t breathe. The voice was so loud it felt like someone was shouting in his ear. _Guess they didn’t get the memo about my promotion_ , he thought bitterly.

Two skipped heartbeats later, he realized it was the “FBI” agent on the bullhorn again, only this time, the volume was cranked up to eleven. 

Standard strategy and tactics, police manuals, military hostage rescue training, and a half-dozen other courses and manuals ORDA had pounded into him, raced through his brain. Synapses connected like flipping pages. In an instant, the picture was crystal clear. He crab-walked backwards and ducked behind the next display just before they flipped the klieg lights on. He hoped Nicki had felt his urgency and figured out what to do. 

“We know you are inside and you have a hostage. We are aware you have been exposed to a highly contagious disease and have stolen weapons of mass destruction. You will surrender or you will leave this building in a body bag. Do not try to use the weapon. We have your position targeted by snipers.”

“Like _hell_ you do,” Jensen whispered. They had no clue where he was. And ORDA had told them Nicki was a hostage, which meant ORDA wanted to interrogate—or experiment on—her before they killed her. 

Jensen ignored the rest, not listening to the words, reaching out with all his senses, looking for anything that screamed “danger, danger.” It took him a moment, but he heard it—a series of barely audible pops picked up on the bullhorn.

Tear gas.

And lots of it by the sound. A controversial—but generally non-lethal—weapon against humans, it might as well be mustard gas to most Naiians.

_Out now. Get out now!_

Jensen looked around, gauging options. He had to get to Nicki and they had to get out of there, and they were out of time. There was a way…

Without further hesitation, Jensen crept forward and glanced over the railing. There was a clothes rack beneath him, but clear space two meters to the left that had cover from the front windows courtesy of a checkout counter, as long as he didn’t stand up.

_Nicki, how fast can you get to the north end of the store by register 12 without being seen? It’s the one on the end._

_What the fuck?_ He could feel confusion and concern radiating off Nicki in waves.

 _Tear gas will probably kill us. Just let me know when you get there._

_Going._

Jensen could feel the urgency Nicki was putting into her movements, tempered with equal measures of caution and instinct. He spared a split second to wonder if ORDA would really risk killing Nicki with tear gas, or if they were bluffing, or if maybe they were just stupid enough to think Nicki wouldn’t be affected or wasn’t Naiian... But his train of thought shut off as soon as he heard a frantic mental “here” from Nicki.

“Captain Ackles, you have thirty seconds—”

Which meant more like five.

He pulled his sidearm from its holster and turned towards the escalators, firing twice even as he dove and tucked into a roll, launching himself over the balcony railing, but not with too much force or speed, so he wouldn’t splat on the other end. 

_Oh my god, you’d be crazy to jump!_

_Luckily, I don’t have to._

He could feel the four members of the R team who’d been trying to box him in firing as he opened the aperture, but they missed. He kept the gravitational orientation the same for the exit, and dropped a half a meter into a roll, hitting the carpeted floor softly, and coming to a stop against the checkout counter beside Nicki.

“What the hell?” she hissed, crawling closer.

“They work in at least three dimensions,” Jensen replied as the R team members from both floors opened fire, and the smash of breaking glass signaled the arrival of the tear gas.

Holding his breath, Jensen reached out and took Nicki’s hand, met her eyes, and opened the aperture beside them, blasting against the counter, but taking advantage of their leaning on it to topple them through to the other side. He watched as bullets ricocheted off the counter right next to where they’d been crouched until someone gave the order to stop and a tear gas canister spun into view. Jensen closed the wormhole with a definitive snap and rolled over panting.

“Shouldn’t. Decoys?” Nicki asked, sounding winded.

“What? Oh,” Jensen belatedly managed to open three wormholes to lay a false trail and staggered to his feet, or at least tried to. He got to his knees before his legs gave out and found himself lying face first on the pavement. 

“Come on, we gotta move. Are you okay?” Nicki asked uncertainly, rolling to her feet. Her concern was laced with a threat. He’d better be okay.

“I—just pushing myself too hard,” he panted, gesturing to where the last of the wormholes had been and willed control to return to his legs. 

Nicki reached out a hand and pulled Jensen to his feet. 

He swayed for a moment, but regained his balance. 

“Could I help with that?” She gestured towards the symbiote.

“Uh, that would probably make it worse for me,” Jensen admitted. “I’m sorry I left you down there. I’m not used to being in the field where everyone doesn’t have a wormhole-making device.” He beckoned Nicki with a wave. “This way.”

They were in another alley, further up the hill and closer to Ravenna, but not so far as to land in the posh neighborhood proper. Depositing themselves among nice houses on bigger lots with plenty of space in between would have been an invitation for trouble. They’d be too exposed.

They were outside the perimeter the feds had set and hopefully far enough from their previous ventures they wouldn’t run into any R teams that were still canvassing their earlier locations. Jensen broke into a run, wanting to put as much distance between them and the exit aperture as his still-shaky legs would allow. They ran Southeast, in the general direction of fraternity row. 

About halfway there, Jensen ducked around the corner and pulled Nicki to the side. They were in another alleyway, close enough to the Ave to be among apartments and commercial buildings and away from the single-family residences where their presence was infinitely more suspicious. After all, the local residents didn’t know what was really going on. Enough of them were probably scared enough or afraid enough of getting into trouble with the intimidating and terrifying feds to make the call and turn in folks who were out past curfew. Sure, they were in Seattle, where a healthy chunk of the populace was suspicious of the government line, inquisitive, rebellious, and bucked at authority. But that wasn’t _everyone_ , and even the most stalwart conspiracy theorist could find themself a conformist when faced with such a direct and immediate perceived threat. And a purported pandemic was a scary threat. So, Jensen wasn’t taking any unnecessary chances.   
“Here,” he said, when they were suitably concealed against the side of an apartment building. He reached into his backpack and held out the first pair of shoes he’d grabbed for Nicki. “They’re not quite the right size, but I think they’ll work.” He shrugged, feeling distinctly inadequate for not even finding her shoes that fit. They’d broken into the sporting goods store for a reason, after all.

Nicki took the shoes with a half-breathless “thanks,” bending down to shuck her boots in favor of the freshly purloined athletic shoes.

“I—I’m sorry,” Jensen stammered, careful to keep his voice low, eyes darting nervously. “I wasn’t thinking... I’m not used—” Not used to _what_? Having to protect civilians? But it wasn’t that long ago he was a civilian. He was AWOL and not on a sanctioned mission at the moment, and he wasn’t reading Nicki as a civilian. No, it was something very different. He wasn’t used to others like him being vulnerable. Until very recently, ORDA had handed out WMDs (and symbiotes) like candy—or life preservers—to every Naiian. They were supposed to ensure the safety of humans, those who didn’t have the ability to flee at will. He wasn’t used to another Naiian being the vulnerable one; he wasn’t used to a Naiian not being a soldier. If the situation wasn’t so dire, Jensen might have pondered how effective ORDA’s conditioning had been in such a short period of time. 

“We’ll just have to get me one soon—Alona too,” Nicki said, not a hint of anger in her voice. “For the others too, right?”

And that was true. Harris and Jared were currently without their own means of wormhole generation. It made them vulnerable, unacceptably vulnerable, but how would they solve it? He was sure Tony could design them WMDs that couldn’t be traced, but Tony was on Miradoma, and taking a wormhole there would just lead all of ORDA’s minions to his doorstep. For now, at least, Jensen had hope maybe Miradoma was the one place where they were still safe. He brushed the thoughts aside because they had far more pressing problems. “We’ll figure something out,” Jensen agreed, sounding more confident than he felt. 

It was then that he realized he was still panting slightly, the adrenaline surge from their encounter and ensuing flight finally catching up with him. His hands started shaking, and his left knee was spasming. He kept trying to convince his body that he wasn’t done yet, they weren’t safe, but the strain of the last few hours was catching up with him, and the relative placidity of their surroundings was lulling his body into a sense of security. After all, why not? They hadn’t heard the bamf, pop, or snap of any apertures since they left the sporting goods store. The night was almost silent around them—just the slightest breeze rustling the leaves of nearby trees and not a soul in sight. Their position was reasonably concealed. For all intents and purposes they were safe, at least as safe as they could be.

“You ok?” Nicki asked.

“Yeah, just thinking about where to go,” Jensen murmured.

“I’ve been thinking about that—” Nicki started, but then her face froze and twisted.

Jensen opened his mouth to ask what was wrong when he felt it. Slick and slippery, familiar, but not. A mind he knew, but didn’t—someone not quite there, not quite who they used to be.

Jensen froze, hand on his sidearm. All too late he started to whirl around. He was stupid, stupid, stupid! Standing barely concealed with his back turned to the alley and the street. Feeling safe. _But there was no wormhole..._ Idiot! How idiotic, how arrogant and moronically conceited, thinking ORDA would keep tracking their wormholes and not try to track on foot! It had worked once and they’d gotten lucky. Twice and he was tempting fate, presuming ORDA would be incompetent and slow. He’d underestimated Barnes and his team, and it was going to be Jensen’s death. Their death, because sure enough, the third R team they’d encountered were all here, he could feel their minds, just Naiian-like enough to sense, but impenetrable, so his mind bounced and slid off each one in turn. All six of them were here, and they were equipped to hunt—hunt and kill Naiians.

Jensen managed to turn a quarter of the way when a body slammed into him, forcing him against the rough brick façade of the building in front of him. _Barnes._ His former teammate.

Jensen could feel Barnes’ breath hot and wet on the back of his neck. The faint pressure of something pressed against his spine. Jensen didn’t have to be able to really feel it to know what it was. 

“Hello, freak,” Barnes singsonged. “You feel that?”

“You know I can’t,” Jensen managed, his voice coming out much calmer and matter-of-fact than it had any right to. His skin prickled where he could feel it, and he was filled with a desperate urge to flee. Every molecule of his being, down to his core, sensed the danger, and filled him with a furious, energy, almost animalistic in its need. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t just take it. He didn’t care if he died in the process; he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

“But you know what this is, don’t you? Don’t you?” Barnes punctuated each “don’t you” with a particularly vicious jab of the plasma rifle’s barrel into Jensen’s ribs.

“Yes,” Jensen grit out, the breath leaving his lungs with the force of each jab. He’d actually _felt_ the last one as more than a vague jab, which was terrifying in and of itself. How hard was Barnes hitting him?

“These are lethal enough for killing ordinary people, but for most of your kind, they’re poison, aren’t they?”

Jensen didn’t answer, instead he countered, “Used to be you were one of _us_. Does your team know that? Do they?” Jensen struggled in Barnes’ grasp, testing the strength of his grip. Jensen managed to pry his left shoulder off the brick for a split second, only to get slammed back into the building when Barnes slammed his left arm like a bar across Jensen’s shoulders. The coarse brick bit into Jensen’s cheek and jaw, abrading and gouging his skin. 

“Shut up, bitch!”

“Oh, struck a nerve, did I?” Jensen wheezed, struggling again. “What did they do to you? How could you let them make you something you’re not?” Jensen continued, the wonder in his voice genuine. He had no leverage with his shoulders now, but his struggling had had the intended effect. Barnes had shifted his grip on the plasma rifle entirely to his right hand in his effort to pin Jensen to the wall. In order to keep Jensen’s shoulders flat, he’d had to shift, creating a gap between Jensen’s body and his, and shifting his aim so the barrel of the plasma rifle was now aimed just left of Jensen’s spine. It wasn’t much, but it was a chance.

“All they did,” Barnes hissed into Jensen’s ear, spittle hitting Jensen’s face and hair, “is cure me. Undo the unnatural contamination from those alien bugs and give me back my _life_! This is who I am. Human!” 

Jensen swallowed hard, the unyielding edge of a brick cutting into his Adam’s apple as it moved. 

“I’m not like you,” Barnes hissed. “I’ve _never_ been like you!” His arm was crushing Jensen’s neck from behind, making it harder and harder to breathe. 

Jensen clenched his left hand, testing, tensing. He could make a fist, and Barnes was too distracted, too singular in his focus to realize. But desperation was spiking in Jensen, blooming and bursting in time with the little white lights behind his eyes. Fuck, he wasn’t getting enough air. Sure Naiians could survive, thrive even, in low oxygen environments, but that depended on their bodies’ ability to adapt to different atmospheric conditions. The atmosphere hadn’t changed, there was no other substance for Jensen to metabolize. Barnes was going to suffocate him right here, right here in an alley, in front of Nicki... Nicki...

They were ignoring Nicki. She had been trying to tell Jensen, but he’d been too focused on Barnes to listen. Two of Barnes’ soldiers had weapons trained on Nicki, a plasma rifle and a P-90, but they were both distracted, probably enjoying the spectacle of their boss putting an “alien freak” in his place. Neither had realized Nicki still had Jensen’s backpack clutched in one hand. The other three formed a perimeter, two backing up Barnes and one covering the far end of the alley. The former had made a mistake—or rather Barnes’ enthusiasm for bagging Jensen had placed them out of position. Their weapons were still trained on Jensen, but Barnes had put himself in the line of fire. 

Nicki was showing Jensen what was going on behind him, and the possibilities were unfolding like paths in his mind. Connect the dots; follow the route highlighted on a map. 

Barnes shifted, his grip on the plasma rifle tightening, the barrel inching back on target.

“What are you going to do, bring me in so they can ‘cure’ me too?” Jensen wheezed out. A distraction. He just needed to buy a little more time, think despite the drop in oxygen, communicate with Nicki...

“Oh no,” Barnes taunted, taking the bait. “It doesn’t work that way. Born a freak, always a freak, they’re pretty sure we can’t make you something you never were, and I’m not about to give you the chance, not after what you did to Kane.”

 _Oh shit._ Another wave of panic twisted its way up Jensen’s spine. “Kane killed himself.”

“Because you told the Generals he was a traitor—”

“No! Because he found out the truth. That ORDA was going to use you all the way it used people like me. Once contaminated, always contaminated. You really think ORDA’s ever going to let you have a normal life? Ever treat you like a _real_ human?”

“Shut! Up!” Barnes screamed, leaning harder into Jensen’s right side.

Jensen didn’t need to read Barnes’ mind to know he’d hit the jackpot. He could feel confusion radiating from Nicki, but he brushed it aside with a silent promise to explain everything later, when they were safer. Because safe they definitely were not. Antagonizing Barnes had given Jensen the room he needed to act, but it had also pushed Barnes over the edge. His desire to gloat over being the one to capture Jensen had been overridden by hatred. 

The whine of a plasma rifle charging echoed in the night.

 _Ready..._ Jensen sent to Nicki.

He sucked down as much air as he could.

Barnes put his finger on the trigger.

Nicki’s grip on the backpack shifted.

Jensen’s muscles tensed as he squeezed his fist tighter.

_Now!_

Jensen jabbed back hard with his left elbow, as he swept the ground with his left foot.

Nicki swung the bag in her right hand, bringing it up and across, rising out of the shadows to hit one weapon, then the next, before connecting solidly with the nose of the second soldier.

Barnes let out an oof of pain as Jensen’s elbow planted firmly in his solar plexus, and staggered as he lost his footing, Jensen’s leg sweep catching and hooking his ankle, sending him off balance. His full body weight crashed into Jensen as their ankles tangled.

The two soldiers guarding Nicki tried to react, a split-second too late. The first soldier’s plasma rifle went off, the burst flying wide of Nicki and clipping the second soldier in the arm. That soldier was already firing...

But Nicki had dropped to the pavement and was rolling out of the way. 

The third soldier, the one guarding the far end of the alley, had spun around at the first sign of trouble, narrowly avoiding getting hit by both of his compatriots’ misfires. 

A part of Jensen wanted to stay focused on Nicki, he was both worried for her and impressed by what she’d done so far. But he couldn’t spare the attention. He was still pinned by Barnes, and Barnes was recovering from his impact with the wall, struggling to bring the plasma rifle back in line. If Barnes got a shot off...

There was little chance anyone could survive a shot from a plasma rifle at point blank range. Jensen had done it once, and there was absolutely no way he could do it again. 

Fear leapt in his belly, a living thing, twisting like a snake, then skittering and clawing—a wild animal desperate to escape. As Barnes’ weight shifted fully onto Jensen’s right shoulder, Jensen felt his knees buckle, his left leg going completely numb. It was the opportunity he needed. Jensen let gravity drag them down as he twisted to face Barnes and grab the rifle. It was a risky move, spinning into the barrel, but he had no other choice, no leverage to spin the other way. 

They landed together on the pavement with a thud and crack, as Jensen’s skull connected with the asphalt, sparks exploding in his eyes. Jensen had managed to twist most of the way around, his hands coming up between them to wrestle with the gun. Barnes’ legs were still caught in his, making it impossible for Jensen to get up. 

Barnes had landed partly on his side, but Jensen’s body had broken his fall. He wasn’t dazed, and he was very, very angry.

“Fucking faggot!” Barnes spat, as he tried to rip the rifle away, while pressing the barrel back towards Jensen’s face, hatred ringing in his voice. 

Jensen could read his intentions on his face. “No!” he coughed, defiant. Barnes’ hatred was deeper than Jensen had realized. Barnes didn’t just want to see Jensen dead. He wanted him destroyed, brutalized, disfigured. He blamed Jensen for what ORDA had done to him. Done to all of them. 

Jensen grabbed the barrel and shoved, forcing it away from his body. 

Barnes squeezed the trigger, and the blast went wide, but barely. The shockwave smacked against Jensen’s cheek, and a shower of superheated brick shrapnel followed, stinging as it hit Jensen’s scalp, forehead, neck, and hand. “Ah,” he gasped, his strength faltering as he flinched.

Barnes was hit too, but the impact of the shrapnel just seemed to fuel his rage. He rammed the butt of the rifle into Jensen’s ribs, knocking the wind out of him.

Jensen felt something pop and give in his chest, as the blow connected. He couldn’t breathe, and his vision was sparking, more and more. _Think, damnit, Jensen. Think! You know this. You’re trained..._ He was dimly aware that the two soldiers guarding Barnes had raised their weapons, but they couldn’t get a clean shot. Barnes was in their line of fire...

Jensen’s diaphragm recovered, and he reflexively inhaled. Breathing hurt, as his now broken ribs expanded, but there was no searing pain, no tearing sensation, no wetness and unrelenting pressure. No punctured lung, at least not yet. Jensen could be thankful for small favors. Adrenaline surged through him as oxygen returned to starving muscles, and with it procogitol. Sensation flooded back into Jensen’s lower body. 

Barnes pulled the butt of the rifle back to swing again.

Jensen wouldn’t stay conscious through another hit. But the movement created an opportunity, and Jensen seized it. Bracing himself, he tugged back on the barrel of the gun, throwing Barnes off-balance, and surged upward, slamming his forehead into Barnes nose. 

“Ow, fuck,” Barnes stammered.

It hurt like hell, and nearly completed what the rifle butt had started, but Jensen couldn’t stop to think about it. While Barnes was disoriented he put both hands on the plasma rifle and yanked.

The two soldiers guarding Barnes’ back finally clued in that this fight wasn’t going in favor of their commanding officer, seizing the opportunity presented when a stunned Barnes slumped slightly to Jensen’s left, no longer completely blocking their line of fire. The soldier brought his plasma rifle up and aimed. “Gottcha,” he crowed, putting his finger on the trigger.

Jensen switched his grip on the plasma rifle he was wrestling from Barnes and fired. 

Impossibly high heat whizzing by Jensen’s head, and for a few seconds he wasn’t sure if he was hit. But then the pained gasp of a dying man gave him the answer. His shot had hit first, and the soldier had missed. Even with Kevlar on, the armor wasn’t enough to stop or dissipate the force of the blast. 

“Jensen!” Nicki screamed. 

Reflexively he turned to the sound of her voice, expecting to find her in mortal peril. She was struggling with the soldier who had been guarding the end of the alleyway, elbowing the woman repeatedly in the ribs and raking her heels down the woman’s shins as she tried to bring her captured weapon to bear on someone else... Barnes.

Barnes’ fist slammed into Jensen’s gut as he realized the purpose of Nicki’s warning a split second too late. The air left Jensen with an oof. Not again. Fuck it! Jensen ignored the horrible gasping sensation in his chest, and lashed out, kicking hard with his right leg again and again. 

Barnes tried to take another swing, but Jensen managed to get a knee up under him. The blow still landed, but it was glancing and ricocheted off Jensen’s arm instead of hitting him in the solar plexus. 

_Thwack!_ Jensen swung with the butt of the plasma rifle, catching Barnes in the jaw as he wriggled his legs free. They rolled, Barnes still conscious. Jensen had the sudden feeling of being very exposed. Moving on instinct, Jensen’s right hand released the plasma rifle and flew back to his holster. He only had a few shots left, and there was no time. Throwing himself flat on Barnes, he reached back, glanced out of the corner of his eye, and fired. 

It was hardly ideal, but Jensen could feel the general location of the soldier behind him, and if he waited to look, he’d be dead. He had a vague sense of pressure glancing against his back and side, and Barnes grunted like he’d been hit. Jensen fired again and didn’t spare it another thought. One bullet left in the mag and no time to reload. He spared a glance over his shoulder and fired. Time slowed down.

The shot rang out in the night, coinciding with a three-round burst of P90 fire. Both soldiers dropped. And time rushed back to normal speed.

“Jensen,” Nicki screamed. The sound of a body falling to the pavement like a sack of potatoes followed.

Jensen’s arm dropped, the gun suddenly too heavy for him to lift. He turned back to Barnes and the world blurred around him as he moved. 

Barnes was still hanging on and struggling underneath him. The sight of it gave Jensen a burst of energy he didn’t know he had. He brought his arm around and pistol-whipped Barnes in the temple. “That’s for turning on us and hunting your own people.” 

Barnes was out cold now, and Jensen had a nagging feeling he needed to do something, but it was becoming increasingly difficult think straight. He released the plasma rifle and tried to shove his sidearm back in its holster, but he couldn’t seem to line it up, and the gun clattered to the ground instead. _Need to pick that up._ He needed to get up too, but it was hard to move. Hard to breathe. His left leg was numb. He managed to get one hand underneath him, pushing himself up off Barnes’ unconscious body with some difficulty. He tried to move his right leg, which he could sort-of feel, but stumbled when he discovered his ankle was still tangled in Barnes’ legs. “Whoa,” he slurred, as he pitched over and started to do a header onto Barnes. 

“Jensen,” Nicki said again. 

Small, but strong, hands slipped under his armpits and hauled him up. It took a few moments of awkward maneuvering complicated by the eight-inch height difference between Jensen and Nicki and the nagging fact that Jensen was partially paralyzed at the moment, but Nicki managed to untangle Jensen from Barnes and prop him up against the brick wall. “What’s wrong?” She was squinting at him. The light in the alleyway was very dim and growing dimmer...

No, those were just spots developing in his vision. This was bad, very bad, yet very familiar... But Jensen couldn’t put his finger on _why_.

“Are you hurt? Is it something to do with—” she floundered, searching for the word, “your paralysis and the biochemical thing?”

He stared up at her blankly.

“Your hands are shaking,” she said by way of explanation.

 _Muscle tremors, impaired cognition and concentration, a horrible shaking feeling like something was trying to carve you out from the inside. Loss of consciousness..._ “Doh,” he cursed his throat catching on the syllable. Now that he knew what it was, he could think a little more clearly, but there was also the rising panic. He’d opened so many wormholes in so short a time, how could he have forgotten what would happen? “It—it’s not that.” He struggled to push himself up straighter, but his ribs gave an agonizing twinge, and he soon discovered his hands were shaking too badly for that. “Hypoglycemia. Se—severe. Opened too many wormholes. My blood sugar’s—” But the world chose that moment to flip and swirl, blacking out at the edges. Blackness swallowed him whole before his vision snapped back... Only now his heart was racing. 

“This has happened before? Do you have any candy? Juice? Glucose tablets?”

Jensen tried to shake his head, but the world just swam faster. “Glucagon kit in the—” he panted, “in my bag.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Nicki was gone. He couldn’t see where she went, only then she was asking him something, and he realized she had just moved down the alley to retrieve his bag. 

“This it?” she asked, back by his side. She was holding up a small red kit.

He tried to nod.

“Oh forget it, it was a rhetorical question, I know what an emergency kit looks li—” Only she broke off when the kit opened. She was staring at the contents, baffled. “What the hell?” She held up one of the syringes, which was encased in plastic and all in one piece. “This doesn’t look like a glucagon injection.”

“You know what they look like?” Jensen asked stupidly.

“I’m diabetic.” 

Even in his muddled state, Jensen could hear the unspoken, sarcastic “genius” tacked onto the end of Nicki’s statement. 

“It’s auto—automatic. Pre... measurednmixing,” he slurred. It was getting harder to hang on.

Alona was looking at the syringe as if it was a particularly nasty insult. “Well that’s awfully convenient. The general population would love to have these,” she added bitterly.

“ORDA’re bastards.” 

Nicki actually laughed, a short bark that broke through the oppressive, unnatural silence that had fallen after the gun battle concluded. “I think I got that already.” Her expression sobered. “Where do you want it?”

“Thigh,” Jensen said, or at least he thought he said it, but he could tell from Nicki’s suddenly horrified expression the word hadn’t exactly come out right. 

Still, she seemed to understand what he meant. A second later, Nicki had lowered him to the pavement so he was curled on his left side, and she was swabbing his thigh. 

Jensen had somehow totally missed the part where she’d gotten his pants undone. He felt the prick of the needle and let out a little breath he’d been holding. 

Time went fluid after that. Jensen wasn’t sure how long it had been, but soon his stomach was rebelling, and he’d promptly vomited all over the damp, smelly ground. 

“You back with me?’ Nicki asked. 

Jensen realized he was still on the ground, but Nicki had managed to keep him out of the cooling pool of vomit, and get him propped against the wall again. “Yeah,” then stronger, “yeah, I’m back with you.” Jensen looked down at his hands. They were still shaking. He dragged one through his hair, which was tacky with sweat and dirt. “We gotta get out of here.”

“No shit,” Nicki replied. “Every uniform in a 10-block radius has got to be on its way here.” She looked Jensen directly in the eye. “Why aren’t they here already?”

“Pissing contest, explosion, and probably one or more of our friends has done something to distract them.” He looked over at Barnes’ body. “Also, I’m pretty sure this lot went rogue, didn’t call in their position, and that’s causing its own confusion.” Another thought occurred to him, “Do you have your meds with you?”

“I’ve got my emergency kit,” Nicki said, trying to feel far more confident than she actually felt. He could feel her shoving the terror away, refusing to acknowledge it.

 _Katie had better be okay._ They were both going to need her.

Nicki surveyed the bodies in the street. The rear guard had a knife sticking out of her chest. “I never, ki—”

“That’s not you; you’re not a bad person. They were hunting us,” Jensen did his best to reassure, knowing the words were little comfort.

“You said that before, what do you mean?”

He picked up the plasma rifle that was discarded near his hip and held it out to Nicki. “This is a plasma rifle. Favored Licinian weapon, yeah, they’re the species of alien that we’re related to, for lack of a better term. Does what it says on the tin, shoots a burst of superheated plasma at its target. For most species it’s horribly destructive because it burns and damages with massive concussive force, but for most Naiians, it’s a lot worse. There’s a chemical in the plasma called Posiphase. For most of us, it causes irreversible nerve damage. Get hit, you don’t know you’re hit, and you don’t know how bad. If the initial damage isn’t bad enough, the massive infection and dehydration that follows because you don’t know you’re shot will almost certainly kill you.”

“The scars on your back and side,” Nicki realized. “This is what did that.”

Jensen nodded, holding his hands out so Nicki could haul him to his feet. They almost overbalanced and wound up with their arms wrapped around each other in an awkward hug. 

Nicki pulled her hand back suddenly, shocked. She looked down at her palm, which was covered in something dark and glistening. “You’re bleeding.”

 _Oh,_ Jensen realized. He’d thought he felt something, sort of. He brought his hands up, and ran them over his side, finding the singed edges of fabric, which were plastered to the wound. 

“You’ve been shot?”

“Just grazed,” he realized, confirming with a hasty inspection of the wound. “Bullet wound.” There was no bullet inside, and the wound wasn’t that deep.

“How did you not—”

“Permanent nerve damage, and no, there’s no neurotransmitter work-around for what posiphase does.” 

“You need a hospital,” Nicki whispered.

“What we need, is a place to regroup and plan—and Katie,” Jensen said, straightening up. His broken ribs protested, and he let out a hiss of pain. “Nicki, present circumstances aside, I can’t ever go to a human civilian hospital on Earth. Do you have any idea how they’d react if they got a good look at my back?”

Point taken, Nicki nodded. “Holy shit,” she whispered as she saw the mess their battle had left behind.

“We need to collect all their weapons. Anything useful, strip it. We’ll need it.” 

Nicki looked remarkably unsettled but complied, going around to the bodies at the farther along the alley. 

While Nicki worked, Jensen began rooting around in his bag for the meager first aid kit. Finding a sterile pressure bandage and some saline, he set about hastily irrigating and bandaging the wound.

“What about the knife?” Nicki asked.

Jensen nodded, “No reason to give them a really good look at your fingerprints. Besides, Katie can take a look at the blood work, maybe figure out what ORDA did to a bunch of humans to let them open wormholes. Turning back to Barnes, he thought bitterly, _and one Naiian to make him human._ Almost human, anyway. Jensen retrieved his XDm and holstered it and began stripping Barnes’ gear. Another XDm, a stun gun of unspecific origins, a standard bioscanner, a tablet, and three spare mags. He snapped off the backs of the scanner and tablet, popped out the tracking chips, and crushed them before placing the component parts in his bag. It was risky, but they needed equipment, and this was too good an opportunity to pass up. He crushed the phone, radio, and Earth-made WMD by throwing them against the wall and stepping on them. It was cathartic, and he felt marginally better afterwards. 

“He’s still alive,” Nicki whispered. 

Sure enough, Barnes was breathing shallowly and bleeding sluggishly from the gunshot wound in his side. Without medical attention he’d likely die soon. 

“We can’t just leave him,” Nicki protested, when Jensen started to move away. 

“That’s exactly what we have to do.” Jensen countered, looking Nicki in the eye. “He will kill us if he gets another chance. He would blow himself up and take out half a city full of innocent civilians if it meant he could take me with him.”

“Why?” Nicki asked.

“Because he used to be one of us. He was Naiian, and he was on my team, and he hated being different so much, he betrayed me and then the entire planet in an attempt to win favor with people who could make him human again... And then he found someone to actually do it.” Jensen shuddered, Barnes’ presence felt so wrong, even the thought of it made him sick. “That, and he blames me for our CO’s death.”

“Did you—”

“Nah, that was Kane.”

Nicki’s eyes widened in recognition. By now she’d heard most of the background, including the stories about Kane, his betrayal of Jared, and the redeeming message he had left behind.

“He did some fucked up shit, but in the end, he killed himself to save all of our people,” Jensen said with reluctant reverence. Shaking himself, he added, “Come on, we gotta get out of here.” He glanced at the fire escape, a plan forming in his mind. “Up there, you gotta get changed, and I have an idea about where we can go.”

“Wait,” Nicki protested. “What about these?” She held up a selection of WMDs she had pulled off the other members of the R team. “Do we take them?”

“No,” Jensen said, skimming over the egg-shaped devices. “ORDA made those. They can track them, and they might be rigged with all kinds of booby traps.”

Nicki nodded in understanding and began to put them down. 

Something caught Jensen’s eye. _It couldn’t be. ORDA wouldn’t take that kind of risk!_ Except obviously it would. _And I sensed one when ORDA first attacked._ Maybe they figured since the people using it were human...

“What?” Nicki asked, frozen halfway between standing and bending over to touch the pavement. 

“Not that one,” Jensen pointed at the smallest and smoothest of the devices, which was glowing in a warm, contented peach where it touched Nicki’s skin. “Don’t leave that one. It’s a real symbiote, and you’ve already started to bond with it.”

Nicki let the others go, falling with a clatter, and closed her fingers more tightly around the symbiote. “I can—I can feel it.” 

Jensen gave her a pained smile. It was wonderful that Nicki had a way to open wormholes, but with a symbiote, she now shared the vulnerability that had nearly killed Jensen. “We’ll figure out a way to train you with it. For now, slip it in your pocket, ‘cause we gotta go.”

Jensen could feel more almost-Naiian minds approaching, and didn’t want to stick around for another confrontation. He reached down to unstrap Barnes’ thigh holster and gave it and the spare sidearm to Nicki. Kicking away the WMDs and other detritus, he gave a shaky jump, caught the bottom of the fire escape, and started to climb. “You can finish getting changed up here,” He panted down at her. 

Without hesitation, Nicki jumped, and followed him. “Then what? Where do we go from here?”

“I know someone who lives near here, someone ORDA won’t think of in a million years.”

“Who?” Nicki asked, grunting as she pulled herself up on to the fire escape landing. 

“Mrs. Costa,” Jensen said feeling very proud of himself. “Oh, you might not know her—”

“Oh, a client,” Nicki surmised. “Will she remember you?”

Jensen thought about the hot-tempered elderly woman who liked to run over people’s feet with her electric scooter to get their attention. Jensen had been her favorite lawyer, back when he’d worked at HLD Legal Aid with Alona. “Oh, she’ll remember.” Now if they could all make it there in one piece... It just might give them the time they needed to figure out how to get out of here for good.

_Chapter 13_

_Two hours earlier…_  
“Go! I’ve got them, just go,” Harris shouted over the growing whine of charging capacitors and plasma rifles that had surrounded them. From the sound of it, ORDA planned to bring the house down on them. 

Jensen had already taken Nicki and fled, and Misha had whisked Alona away through another wormhole, leaving Katie, Hodge, Harris, Roberts, Jared, and Genevieve with four symbiotes between the six of them. 

_We need supplies. You go. We’ve got it covered._ Jared reassured.

Katie nodded, and Harris disappeared into an aperture taking the other four with her, and suddenly Katie was alone. Not for long if the volume of the whine was any indication. 

“Here goes nothing,” she muttered with more confidence than she felt. She reached out with her right hand and willed the aperture to open, stepping inside just as a resounding crash announced ORDA’s entrance as the front door splintered out of its frame and fell to the floor with the force of ORDA’s battering ram. She looked over her shoulder, one last lingering glance before letting the aperture close behind her and stepping out the other side.

When she emerged from the wormhole in the staff bathroom off the emergency department at UW Medical Center, it felt alien and unsettling in a way alien worlds never did. Katie walked down the halls, passing people she knew—doctors, nurses, orderlies—people she had worked alongside for years.

Before, the secrets had seemed insignificant. Huge portions of her job and life were hidden from them, but it didn’t seem to matter. They had enough in common to accept the lie and gloss over the aspects of Katie’s life and schedule that didn’t quite add up. Now here they were going about their daily lives, oblivious. She walked among them, a ghost, unnoticed and unseen. Everyone else was stressed out, worried, griping about the quarantine and the military presence and the work it was creating for them. Complaining about the suspension of civil liberties and human rights violations and government secrecy. All of them living their lives, waiting for the now to be over so things could get back to normal. 

No one realized her entire world had changed, that for Katie, there was no going back. Not now. Not ever.

Katie made it most of the way to the pharmacy storerooms when someone finally noticed her.

“Dr. Cassidy, Dr. Cassidy, Katie!” a man called after her as she walked past.

She had hoped to get away with casually ignoring him, playing it off as if she just hadn’t heard him or thought he was talking to someone else, but she knew that voice, and there was no way she was getting away unnoticed. He would chase after her until she acknowledged him. “Craig,” she said, turning to address the doctor who had accosted her and pasting on a fake smile. Craig Torrington had shared the night shift with her in the emergency department during her most recent rotation, and he was known for being boisterous, oblivious, and always making a scene. 

“I thought you were out sick. I haven’t seen you in a few weeks,” he blurted, panting slightly as he jogged the length of the corridor to catch up with her.

“I was,” Katie said as she kept walking, hands in the pockets of the lab coat she’d snagged from the locker room next to the staff bathroom on her way in. She kept her head down hoping none of the other staff in this area would notice her. If she was really lucky, the security guards were still hospital staff, not ORDA, and they’d take a while to realize she wasn’t supposed to be there. “I’m almost better though. I was planning to come back in a few days, but—” she shrugged.

“They called you back in to help with the ‘situation’?” Craig supplied, complete with air quotes and a far-too-excited voice. “Wait, how’d you get in? Is that safe? I mean, with you being sick?”

Katie shrugged again. “I live inside the quarantine zone, and it’s not contagious. I’m just glad they gave me an extra couple of days rather than recalling me right away.” She hoped Craig wouldn’t be obnoxious enough to pry into her “condition.” She really wasn’t in the mood to concoct a story about some debilitating autoimmune disease that would leave her feeling like an insensitive bitch.

“Ah, so you missed the excitement earlier?” Craig asked, dogging her footsteps.

“Excitement?” Katie asked nervously, “You mean more than black helicopters, three-letter agencies, and a lockdown?”

“Yeah, this morning, they airlifted out a few dozen patients. A lot of them were new. I heard one of the military doctors saying they’d been exposed to some kind of bio weapon and needed to be evaced to a secure location for treatment.” Craig’s tone was salacious and excited. 

Katie wanted to vomit.

“The thing is, I recognized some of the people,” Craig continued. “A few of them were researchers from one of the science departments—they were in here a while back after some protest—and then there was Professor Cohen from immunology and one of your patients—Mr. Summers, I think his name is.”

“Katie’s eyebrows shot to her hairline at the mention of Kane’s old team member. Summers was Naiian—by exposure, like Katie. She’d suspected Prof. Cohen was Naiian and being watched by ORDA… The researchers were probably also Naiians—people stashed in covers related to Misha’s. If they’d all been rounded up and shipped off… “Did they take them to Harborview?” she blurted before she could stop herself.

Craig faltered, stumbling to a halt and spluttering. “I don’t think so,” he hedged, looking confused as if I he was surprised she was paying attention. “The military doctor said something about classified, military hospital, and Kansas. But I don’t think I was supposed to hear that part,” he added in a mock whisper.

 _It’s started._ she thought. Of course it had already started, but these folks were people who hadn’t been caught up in the earlier batches. Folks like Summers, who had an Earth-made WMD, not a symbiote, and Prof. Cohen, who probably didn’t have a wormhole device at all. So, ORDA HQ was finally going the way of its other bases. The Naiians who had survived the initial disconnect were being disappeared.

“Crazy, isn’t it?” Craig asked, when almost a minute had passed without a reply.

Katie had been moving on autopilot, letting her feet lead her where she needed to go. “Sure is,” she agreed as she shoved another set of double swinging doors out of the way. _You have no idea._

“So, where are you going?” Craig asked perking up again at their surroundings. They were outside the pharmacy storeroom now. 

“Pharmacy,” Katie answered honestly. “They’re sending doctors and medics into the community, and they want to take special packs. I got stuck with prepping them, since it’s kind of light duty,” she lied, hoping Craig would get bored and go away. She had planned to hack the lock, as her keycard was undoubtedly deactivated. Even if it wasn’t, using it would be like sending up a flare—here I am, come get me. Only she couldn’t hack the lock with Craig around.

“Oh, let me help,” he offered with a little clap of his hands. Without prompting, he grabbed his ID and held it up to the lock.

 _Bingo._ At least the gossiping chatterbox was good for something. “Isn’t there something you should be doing?” Katie asked, incredulous, as Craig followed her into the pharmacy, babbling away.

“What? Oh, I just went on break when I saw you. Ya know, 20 hours on, 4 hours downtime to rest or whatever, then back on shift,” he continued, almost bouncing with excitement.

“Shouldn’t you be resting then?” Katie queried.

“Oh no, I am _way_ too wired for that. Helping you is so much better than sleep!”

Wondering exactly what (and how many) uppers Dr. Torrington had taken, Katie sighed and got to work. “Well, I guess you can help then.”

“What are we getting? D’ya have a list?” 

Of course he would ask something like that. Katie mentally kicked herself. _Wait a second._ She still had her bag slung over her shoulder, she reached inside and flipped open the main compartment of the depleted field kit she had inside. _Packing list, packing list…_ Her fingers closed around it and pulled it out. It bore the standard ORDA file number on its corner, but that alone wasn’t directly suspicious or incriminating. And unless Craig Torrington was a secret ORDA plant she didn’t know about… Well, hell, what would that give him? If he was a spy, he already had her. Smoothing the list, she handed it to him. “Here you go. I’m supposed to prep ten kits like this.” She’d developed the list after all, it wasn’t like she didn’t know what came in it.

“Sutures, saline, azetomeycin, cogiphoren, _pro_ hipnol, loquipex— I’ve never heard of most of these. D’you have any idea what they are?” Craig asked, staring at the list like it was written in Greek and might possibly bite him.

“Probably something to treat people who’ve been exposed to this bioweapon you were talking about,” Katie improvised, moving towards the secure vault ORDA kept in the hospital proper. “They said what we needed would be in here,” she called over her shoulder. She used her body to cover the lock and what she was doing to it. Genevieve had modified her scanner so it could detect and transmit the appropriate unlocking frequency. _Three, two, one…_ The lock released with a click that Katie masked with a well-timed throat clearing. “Yep, I’m seeing those labels in here. She said, as she took a tray of panantipropenol vials off the shelf and placed them carefully into her bag.

“Where are we supposed to put all this?” Craig asked.

 _Shit!_ Katie had planned to just dump it all in her backpack and jump out. There were enough wormholes in and out of ORDA HQ that it would be difficult for them to track her. Not impossible, but she’d been hoping it might give her just enough time to get away—but with Craig’s “help,” that was looking increasingly unlikely.

“Oh, bags,” Craig said. 

Katie glanced over her shoulder. Craig was holding up a black ORDA field medic bag. “There they are,” she said with a fake smile. “I wasn’t planning to pack them here, just collect the materials and assemble them at the staging point.” There was no way she was getting out of there with ten field bags.

“Of course,” Craig replied as if it were a perfectly reasonable explanation. He was already checking labels on the shelves in the vault and carefully lowering them into one of the field bags.

It reminded her of a particular episode of “Firefly,” and she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Jensen would crack up if he were here. Well, and then he’d point out that Blue Sun Corporation and the Alliance had nothing on ORDA, and that would be depressing. Sobered, she ignored Craig and focused on collecting everything else she needed. Everything they might need that didn’t come in a standard field kit. This might be their only chance to stock up on meds for—she hoped not forever, but unless they got away, somewhere far, far away… 

Craig kept talking as they worked, and every once in a while she would glance over at him, but he didn’t seem to be doing anything obviously suspicious. She’d even checked the scanner—there were no devices broadcasting on him, he didn’t have any bioreactive locators that she could find. It seemed he was clean.

Unsettling as it was, Katie kept working. She reached the false wall at the back of the vault and unlocked it with the scanner when Craig was mumbling something about the glucagon kits. Confirming he was still distracted, she slipped inside. Scanners, check. Phvanzi emergency splits, check. Mobile analysis unit, check. Her bag was now stuffed and packed to bursting. Was there anything else? _Wait._ She remembered that ORDA had an emergency weapons cache inside a dummy fire alarm box, just inside the false wall. It didn’t have much, inside, but the weapons it did have were designed to blend in with the normal world. Quietly as possible she felt around the edges until she found the hidden catch and pressed. The front of the box swung open revealing the hidden weapons inside. She pulled out a holster, a subcompact 9mm—a Glock 26, not her first choice, but it would do in a pinch—a K-bar and sheath that she could strap to her ankle, and a generic Earth-made stun gun. The last item she dropped into her lab coat pocket for wont of a better place to put it. _Wait_ , what was that? There was a pocket inside the door, lined with a series of pre-packed glucose wafers. Well, why not? She pocketed a few packets of those as well. ORDA could be very thoughtful (and thorough) when they wanted to be.

Satisfied she had everything she could use and carry, she closed the cover on the weapons cache, shouldered her heavy, bulging bag, and slipped back outside the false wall.

“Oh, there you are! I was looking all over for you. Didn’t know where you’d gone,” Craig was rambling. He ran over to her from where he’d been standing and presented her with the overstuffed field medic bag. “I got everything on the list.”

“Sorry, I was just—” she faltered unable to come up with a good excuse and realizing the false wall was still open behind her. Light shining through the crack.

“What’s back there?” Craig asked, ever curious, handing off the heavy bag as he slipped past her for a look. 

Katie staggered under the sudden weight.

“Whoa, hidden room! Awesome. I had no idea the hospital had anything like that! All cloak and dagger.”

She closed her eyes as a feeling of dread descended on her. _Doom._

“Anyway, I guess you heard my page when you were back there?”

“Page?” Katie demanded, her eyes popping open as Craig ambled back out of the hidden room. She barely registered her response though, because the burner phone she had stuffed in her pants pocket chose that moment to go off. She pulled it out. A text… from Jensen if she wasn’t mistaken. With instructions and an address. 

“What’s that?” Craig asked, pointing at the phone.

“Phone.”

“That’s not your usual phone.”

“Look, I gotta go. Thanks for your help. I just got updated instructions—” 

But he was still staring at the phone like it might bite him. “Wait, instructions from who? On that? That’s not a standard hospital-issue—”

“I told you I had instructions to gather things for military medic teams,” she reassured, stomach sinking. Things had been going so well. She’d actually thought she might get out of this clean, with Craig Torrington none the wiser.

“Wait, is that why when I paged you—someone called the pharmacy phone, a nurse I don’t recognize and asked if she had heard the page correctly?”

“C—called?” Katie stammered, her head snapping towards the side of the room where Craig had been standing when she’d emerged from the hidden room. Sure enough, there was a standard interoffice courtesy phone. “Did you say you paged me?”

“Yeah, weren’t you listening—”

But Katie didn’t hear the rest of Craig’s sentence, because at that moment she realized the sense of doom she’d felt wasn’t her imagination, and it wasn’t precisely _doom_ either, but the closest thing to it she’d encountered lately. There were ORDA troops approaching, impossible troops like the ones who had surrounded Nicki and Alona’s house. That felt almost Naiian and operated wormholes, but most definitely _weren’t_ …

Katie moved at the same time they did. Years of training and faster Naiian reflexes giving her the slightest of advantages. She spun on the spot, grabbing Craig, and throwing him between her and the door, the two bags swinging dangerously out from each shoulder like a whirlwind of medical paraphernalia. Her back to the vault, she was essentially trapped. At least no one could come in behind her… unless they came in the same way she was planning to leave. She had just enough time to draw the Glock 26 and press the barrel to Craig’s temple as they broke down the door.

“Captain Katherine Evelyn Cassidy,” boomed the voice behind the bullhorn. A team of no less than 10 ORDA troops in full battle armor complete with a rocket launcher, gas masks, and riot shields stood in the dusty smoking remains of the door. Rather than break it down the old-fashioned way, they’d gone and vaporized the metal right out of its frame. 

“Whoops, that’d be me,” she muttered under her breath, loud enough so Craig could hear it.

“Whaa?” he choked, terrified.

She could feel his heart pounding against her chest, and she felt horrible for what was likely to happen to him, for what she was about to do. For letting him help, for letting him hyperactively bluster his way into this mess. But she’d needed him. She’d never have gathered everything in so short a time. And if she’d stayed in here all night, she would have been caught sooner or later. _Yeah, but you wouldn’t have given ORDA another victim._ No. Craig was too nosey. He would have stumbled upon something that got him in trouble in the first place.

“—You are under arrest for treason, interplanetary espionage, theft of planetary secrets, kidnapping, interplanetary terrorism, and an attempted coup of the planet Earth—”

“What?” Craig squeaked out between panicking gasps.

“Don’t listen to them, I’m the good guy,” she muttered, jabbing the Glock harder against his head.

This had the predicted effect of eliciting a few shouts from the ORDA troops, but contrary to television there were no mysterious clicking sounds—all ten weapons currently pointed at her were already chambered and ready to fire. “Ma’am, lower your weapon or I will shoot.” 

No one saw her left hand sliding slowly down Craig’s torso, inching to her own pocket.

“Don’t listen to what they say, they tried to sell our entire planet out to a group of hostile alien war criminals, and now they’re in the middle of committing genocide.”

“Mmmrrrrph,” Craig whimpered, flinching and shuddering against her as his attention shifted from the gun she had pointed at his head to the array of truly terrifying—and some alien—weapons that were currently trained on them.

“Captain Cassidy, stand down and release the hostage or we will open fire. We are authorized to terminate you onsite if you resist,” boomed the voice behind the bullhorn again.

“Terminate me,” she shouted. “The Generals are authorizing open assassination now? What, I don’t even get a pretend court-martial?”

“I said lower your weapon and release the hostage, or we will shoot.”

 _Bingo!_ Her hand was in her pocket and they hadn’t noticed. “They’re going to fire anyway,” she whispered to Craig, who just shuddered harder. “Which is why I’m really, really sorry about what I’m going to do, but it sure as hell beats the alternative.” To the strike team she shouted, “Why should I? You’re just going to shoot me anyway.”

“Ma’am, lower your weapon. Or we will open fire. This is your last warning.”

 _Three._ She closed her hand tight around the stun gun. 

ORDA dropped into position, the front line dropping to one knee.

Craig flailed, screaming, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot me!” at the uncaring troops in front of him.

 _Two._ She moved her hand in her pocket so the stun gun’s electrodes were pressed through the fabric to Craig’s back.

“On my mark.” One of the officers in the front row blinked, his barrel wavering off target a little as if he couldn’t quite accept he was being ordered to shoot a civilian hostage.

“Please, please, I’m begging you! Don’t shoot me!” Craig’s was crying now.

 _One._ Her finger rested over the trigger and she reached out with her mind, connecting with her symbiote. She felt a frantic surge in response, an almost-sentient, almost-aware surge of relief that she was getting them out of there. Fascinating things symbiotes. Living machines that were neither strictly living nor strictly a machine.

The lieutenant with the rocket launcher had shifted his finger to the trigger.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god!” came Craig’s litany.

 _Go._ “ _Sorry_ ,” she half-whispered, half projected as her left finger squeezed the trigger. As Craig’s body jerked and fell, she snapped her right hand away from his head, bringing the weapon to bear on the ORDA team in front of her, squeezing the trigger. _What a waste of life._ She felt horrible for anyone still stuck in ORDA’s orbit who couldn’t get out or didn’t realize the supposedly noble organization they’d sworn their lives to protect had become a unified force of oppression, evil, and destruction. That didn’t stop her from shooting though. Anyone still taking orders from ORDA was an immediate threat to her and every other Naiian in the universe, not just those left here on Earth. And when they were opening fire on her… The wormhole aperture opened behind her with a gentle pop, and she stepped backwards at the same time she shoved Craig’s limp, unconscious body forward, and squeezed another shot, and another, and another.

The ORDA officer on the bullhorn was screaming. Someone had fired prematurely, the shot flying wide, pandemonium ensued—

And she stepped out the other side, the exit aperture closing behind her with a sickening pop.

 _Oh my god._ Not a religious plea, a statement of shock. She’d known where this was building, had realized since before the breakout, since before that lieutenant had collected their symbiotes, since before the cave, since before Jensen’s freak-out on Miradoma, that it was coming to this. Open warfare between the Naiians and the rest of ORDA, but knowing intellectually, and actually having to open fire on people wearing the uniform she’d fought and bled for, for years… 

Her right arm dropped like it was attached to a leaden weight. She stared at the gun in her hand, the fresh GSR on the barrel… Tiny, Seattle-sized rain drops, barely more than mist were falling on it, hissing and spluttering, as they evaporated after coming in contact with the still-hot barrel. She flinched, her shaking hand almost dropping the gun before she managed to shove it back in the holster. She needed… she needed…

But there was no thought. No concentration, just raging shock and burning disgust, not with herself, but with what her world had become. Hands now free, she dropped them to her knees, and pitched forward, puking onto the street. She needed to… she needed… 

Cluing in to what was happening, she reached into her pocket, palmed a pack of glucose tablets, and popped it open. After cramming the unpleasantly chalky sugar into her mouth, she did feel a little better, but the sense of horror still hadn’t left her. But she had to get out of there. She couldn’t let them track her, or catch her or follow her back to the safe house Jensen had found. Blinking the rain, sweat, and tears, out of her eyes, she straightened up and took in her surroundings for the first time. She was in—

—A playground? Oh, a playground with lots of recent wormhole activity. That made more sense. Just like jumping into the hospital made her difficult to track due to all the ORDA activity already there, this would be equally hard to trace. _Now, how to get to Jensen without being detected?_

She let her bags drop off her shoulders, settling on the springy, rubberized playground pavement with two quiet plops. The lab coat had to go. She flipped it off, slipped the stun gun and remaining glucose tabs out of the pocket and shoved those in one of the pockets of her BDUs, then slipped the haphazardly folded jacket into the end pocket of the medical bag. Who knew, it might come in handy as a disguise at some point. 

Satisfied she was as inconspicuous as she could be when leaving an area of wormhole activity, out after curfew with a giant stash of alien medical supplies, she shouldered her bags and set off at a run, pressing every advantage her Naiian speed and strength gave her to get there and get there quickly.

_Chapter 14_

“It’s about time,” Misha said when Jensen slid over the windowsill and into Mrs. Costa’s apartment. “I got your text half an hour ago. We were all—”

“I’ll be okay, Nicki too,” Jensen added, as Nicki slid over the windowsill and into the cramped apartment. 

“Jensen, dear, is that you?” Mrs. Costa asked. “Let me take a look at you,” the electric whine of her wheelchair preceded her into the open kitchen-living-dining space of her tiny one-bedroom apartment. “Alona told me you’d had a family emergency and just never came back. I didn’t believe her. Hah! Turns out I was right. You look like shit,” she added, bumping her footrest into Jensen’s leg.

Of course he didn’t _feel_ it, and that started a whole new round of questions and scolding. 

“God, I thought we had it bad,” said Alona. “Misha took us to the top of the ventilation towers in Red Square,” she shuddered. “I hate heights. We had to rappel to get down. I can’t believe he had a grappling hook in his backpack.”

“Well, we sure confused ORDA, they kept coming by, but they didn’t spot us. I heard them send guys down into the parking garage, but no one ever thought to look up.”

When everyone had settled down, he surveyed the scene. “Has any one seen Katie?” he asked, nervous.

“She’s in the bathroom, cleaning up. Had a bit of a narrow escape, but we all made it,” Misha replied. _I was so worried._ Misha reached out and prodded Jensen’s mind, letting their bond wash over them, telepathically feeling out any new injuries. “What happened?” he asked, upon discovering the gunshot wound.

“Barnes. He might be dead. He was hunting us. Armed with plasma rifles,” and Jensen shared the story of their escape.

When he was done and Katie had finished patching him up, it was almost dawn. 

Mrs. Costa had turned on the morning news, and was busy criticizing the journalistic integrity of everyone—including the meteorologist—when a pompous-sounding theme cut off the sportscaster mid-sentence.

“What’s that?” Genevieve asked groggily, climbing out of the nest of blankets she and Jared had made on a corner of the floor.

The United Nations’ seal came on the screen followed by the public-consumption version of ORDA’s seal.

_And now an important bulletin from the United Nations Security Council and the Oversight, Research, and Defense Agency _, the announcer’s voiceover played while the U.S. Ambassador to the UN and a Brigadier General formerly of Gen. Lehne’s faction came onscreen, walking up to a podium in front of an assembled audience of diplomats and reporters.__

_My fellow citizens of the world. It is with great regret that I come to you today to share with you information about a terrorist threat that poses a clear and present danger to every nation on Earth._

Genevieve’s coffee mug tipped out of her hand and tipped to the floor breaking with a resounding crash.

“Oh shit,” Katie swore.

On screen, superimposed over the footage of the ORDA General, were Misha and Jensen’s ID photos. As the general droned on, confirming their worst fears, more pictures followed—Katie, Jared, Aldis, Harris, Roberts. Abel and his group showed up as well, and rounding out the lot was Genevieve, described as the “unstable civilian wife of former CIA Agent Jared Padalecki.”

“Wow, the Company’s gotta be loving that one,” Jared mumbled. “Goes to show how desperate ORDA must be to throw the CIA under the bus like that.”

Grainy pictures of Nicki and Alona made it onto the screen, but they were listed as possible hostages. As for their IDs it was a real mix. Misha, Jared, and Harris were all listed by their ORDA ranks and treated as if they were Army officers. Aldis was listed with his naval rank. Katie, Jensen, and Roberts were presented as civilians, and so on and so forth. By the end of the broadcast, Jensen was a terrorist, Misha was the Colonel who had committed treason to help him, they’d all been exposed to a bio weapon that made them dangerously unstable, and they were armed, dangerous, and trying to infect the civilian population of any number of countries around the world.

“Well, fuck, there goes any chance at stealth we had,” Katie complained.

“My— _parents_ —saw that,” Aldis whispered, shaken.

Jensen was overwhelmed by the sinking feeling that they’d escaped ORDA again and again just to get trapped.

~~~

The atmosphere had been charged since they arrived, but since the news story had aired, Mrs. Costa’s tiny cramped flat had been simmering near the boiling point. No one knew how much longer they could mask their hacked satellite feed, and no one had come up with a clear plan for moving forward. They were Misha’s people, his officers. ORDA might have turned its back on them, but Misha still had a responsibility as their ranking officer, as their leader. 

_What are you prepared to give?_ Tony’s words were haunting him.

Three days in, there was bad news and good news, although, unsurprisingly, the bad far outweighed the good. Thanks to a pirated satellite link and a hasty encryption program, courtesy of Genevieve, they’d started to get in touch with others who had escaped or evaded ORDA’s clutches. 

Lieutenant, no _Captain_ Jake Abel and the group he’d led out of ORDA—Summers, Lee, Jordan, Kelly… They’d gotten word to Cohen and Gumenick too. A message passed through the hands of the same informant on M’Nell that Kane had used to pass his last words to Jensen. Cohen and Gumenick had reportedly hightailed it back to Miradoma. He just had to hope they’d made it okay without being detected. Now that they’d made the decision to run, or almost made the decision, they had to hang on and hope no one found out about the Naiian settlement. It would suck to have the world they were building get snuffed out before they even arrived. 

The people with Abel had begun traveling from place to place, exploiting weaknesses in the tracking algorithms to jump in and out of ORDA bases gathering the intel they’d need to take the network down for long enough to get their people out. 

Misha had half a mind to tell them to just go. As long as they were finding gaps and slipping through, they should just leave Earth—run and don’t look back. He knew every wormhole they opened, every base they approached, every system they hacked, every instance of social engineering they used to gain access, was one more strike against them. How many could they get away with? How long before someone was caught? By asking them to stay, he could be condemning them, but if they didn’t—

 _There’s no other way to save them. I need to save them._ Misha just hoped by trying to save everyone he didn’t damn them all. 

Deep down, he knew sometime their luck would run out. It was only a matter of time until things went wrong enough they couldn’t compensate. They would lose someone. Maybe several someones, but who?

And then there was the bad news.

“I’m sorry,” Genevieve had said on the second day. She’d come to Misha with haunted, downcast eyes, her body language defensive. He almost asked her who had died, only it wouldn’t have been a joke. One glance at Jared standing curled in on himself in the corner was more than enough for Misha to know how bad this was likely to be.

“I’ve been trying to locate families. Ours, and everyone else’s—any Mar—any Naiian, we know they could go after our families,” she continued.

It was true, for leverage, for a source of more Naiians, families were an obvious, and easy, target. ORDA secrecy meant most people’s spouses didn’t know what they did, let alone kids, parents, siblings, cousins, grandparents—and the not knowing put them at a huge disadvantage.

“And?” he whispered.

“So far, no luck,” Genevieve sighed. “Misha, I’m sorry, your family is gone. I know you haven’t been in touch with your parents for years, but they’ve disappeared. Same goes for your brother and sister,” she cast another glance over her shoulder at Jared, who was now shaking and badly hiding tears.

“I take it Jared’s family’s gone as well,” Misha murmured, keeping his voice low so others wouldn’t hear. 

“They’re just gone. I can’t figure out what happened. I don’t even know when it happened. It’s like they erased _people_ from existence. Even neighbors and co-workers who might have known are missing. My—my parents were arrested, five days ago. Right after—”

“—We escaped,” Misha finished for her. “Oh Genevieve, I am so sorry,” he apologized with genuine remorse. “If you hadn’t helped us. Your family, Jared’s—they’re human, ORDA might not—”

“Shut up,” she croaked out, suppressing tears. “Don’t you dare. ORDA would have gotten to us, to them, soon enough. We couldn’t stand by while they killed you.”

“I—okay,” Misha agreed swallowing around the lump in his throat. Genevieve was right; he couldn’t let his guilt do the talking. “I am still sorry.”

“We’re in the same boat,” Genevieve offered, flopping against the wall and letting herself slide down it. She looked over at Misha and bumped shoulders.

He forced a smile. “Yeah, well, you still talked to your parents. My parents haven’t had anything to do with me in years.”

“Probably because your stepdad is human, and your mom might be too,” Genevieve murmured.

“Guess you’ve been talking to Katie, working through her theories.”

Genevieve nodded. “They make sense. You weren’t quite as strong a Naiian as Jared before you were exposed to nanolumes. The theory is you could have inherited your heritage from one side of the family. If that was your dad’s side…”

“Then it stands to reason neither my mom nor my stepdad are telepathic, and they wouldn’t have an empathic or telepathic bond or link to me. So they would be able to disown me for being gay, while Jensen’s parents, on the other hand, would come around and be seriously contrite about it, because they’re both Naiians.”

Gen nodded.

“How are—have you searched for Jensen’s family yet?” Misha asked, not really wanting to know the answer. If his family was gone, if Jared’s and Genevieve’s families had vanished along with them, there was just no way Jensen’s family was still there, still free.

Genevieve shook her head, not meeting Misha’s eye. “I’m saving them for last. I—I know that means we could lose them while we’re looking, but—” she bit her lip. “There’s no way that’s going to end well.”

“What about the others?” Misha whispered.

“I just told Aldis, his… I’d hoped his father’s stature… You know his father’s a Rear Admiral, right?”

Misha nodded. “Yeah.”

“It’s just like what happened to General Ferris. I got a message through to his secretary. He—he was called away for some special meeting, and no one’s heard from him in three weeks. He apparently sent for his wife and two younger kids to join him at an undisclosed location.”

“No one knows where that is, and no one’s seen hide or hair of them since,” Misha guessed.

“You got it. I—it’s possible he got word out, squirreled them away somewhere,” Genevieve added.

Misha let his eyes wander around the room, spotting Aldis, where he was sitting in front of the TV, looking shell-shocked. “Aldis doesn’t think so.” He could read it in Aldis’ body language without feeling the cloud of dread wrapped around him like a cloak. “His mom’s a lawyer, partner at a pretty big firm. She wouldn’t just _go_ somewhere because someone in the military asked. That’s not how his parents work. That’s a bullshit cover story I bet Admiral Hodge’s secretary didn’t believe it either.”

“No,” Gen agreed. “He sounded pretty skeptical.”

“Fuck,” Misha sighed. “The rest of them?” 

Genevieve shook her head again. “Roberts’ family is missing, not just her parents, but her aunt, uncle, cousins. Harris’s brother was arrested a week ago.”

“Before the escape?” Misha asked in surprise.

“Yeah, before. And her mom didn’t make it to work on Wednesday.” Genevieve glanced over at the table where Jensen and Katie were talking. “Katie hasn’t had a lot of contact with her mom or sisters, but they’re gone too, and her dad was arrested. And yeah, they’re all human.” Letting out a long sigh, Genevieve pushed herself off the wall. “Look, we’re due for another update in a few hours. I should know about Jensen’s family then. Just… brace yourself, alright.”

Misha had agreed. 

Then the news had come in that Jensen’s family was all right. His parents were holed up at home, but they were free so far and apparently keeping their heads down. And his siblings were apparently still free as well. It sounded like his parents’ neighborhood had split around them, with half their neighbors supporting them and the other half disowning them, vilifying them for the “terrorist” actions in which their middle child had engaged. 

“Maybe ORDA’s just waiting. Jensen’s parents are getting too much attention, so they’ll wait until things calm down. Wait ‘til the media has a new obsession, and then pounce,” Genevieve suggested. 

“Do you really believe that?” Misha asked.

“No,” Genevieve admitted. “They _should_ have taken Jensen’s family before the news broke.”

Misha nodded grimly. 

The days stretched on, and tempers rose, and sooner or later something would have to give.

_Chapter 15_

“Are you crazy?” Harris almost spat. It was early in the morning and the refugees in Mrs. Costa’s tiny apartment had woken to the sound of Aldis and Harris arguing. 

Jensen was still trying to sleep. Ever since learning his parents were okay, he’d been feeling guilty and conflicted, and mostly trying to avoid confrontations with his fellow refugees. But the argument was getting pretty difficult to ignore.

“The only people who hate us more than humans are Licinians, and you’re suggesting we go to them for help?” Harris glared at Aldis like he’d committed blasphemy, her gaze cold and suddenly untrusting.

“I’m saying we have to go somewhere for help. We’ll never last out there—” Aldis protested.

“There are a million of us out there!” Harris interrupted. 

“A million out there, five, maybe ten thousand here that we’ll be able to rescue—if we’re lucky. And then a whole lot more—we don’t know how many—who are missing, unaccounted for, unknown!” Aldis shouted. 

Aldis was thinking about his family, and all the things that might have happened to them. 

Jensen could _see_ it in his eyes, could feel the emotions—muted, but ever present—rolling around the surface of Aldis’ mind. Harris and Aldis had been fighting a lot lately. The latest screaming match had started long before Jensen had emerged from his turn in the tiny bedroom and tossed himself back into the fray of the common area. “Thanks Mrs. C,” he called over at their elderly host, who had parked her wheelchair in front of the window and was enjoying her toast and tea while she watched daytime game shows. 

“You’re welcome,” she called back, having to raise her voice to be heard over the din. He could hear the unspoken order to do something about the noise, so, reluctantly, he tried.

“Even if all those people make it, even if there are a million more of them, we’re talking about a combined society of two million people from dozens of cultures and two planets going up against a planet of seven _billion_ and all their allies and their technology and their experience.” Aldis spread his hands pleadingly. “We don’t even know how our bodies work. I mean, Jensen gets shot, and we find out by _accident_ that chemicals in our body can just _bypass_ everything else? ORDA decides they want to ground us, and we nearly die discovering that we’re actually bonded to our WMDs?”

The familiar weight of the tiny biomechanical symbiote at Jensen’s hip eased the sting, but the memory of desperation, loss, and inevitable doom still struck sharp and biting before it eased into the familiar, hollow ache.

“We’ve got the Fropali. They’re our allies. They’ll help!” Harris countered.

“They’re not enough!” Aldis shot back. “They don’t know—”

“Aldis is right,” Jensen said softly. Interrupting before Harris could shout anything back.

“What?” Harris asked, her undivided attention now turned to Jensen. The sensation was not unlike being a speck on a slide under a microscope. “You’re only saying that because Aldis is your friend, and Col. Collins isn’t here to call you on your bullshit.”

“I’m not here to what?” Misha asked as he entered the room. His hair was damp, and curling slightly against his neck. They were all way overdue for a haircut. His tone was light and his smile almost reached his eyes, but Jensen could tell from the weary slump of his shoulders and overall defeated posture that the recon mission he’d snuck out on last night hadn’t gone well. Jensen decided he didn’t want to ask.

“Aldis was—” Harris started.

“If we go on like we are right now, without any more help? We’re screwed. ORDA knows almost as much about us as we do, and they have no qualms about experimentation. Sooner or later they will find another weakness to exploit, one we won’t see coming. And even if we get off this rock, a million or two of us against the combined forces of Earth and its allies don’t stand a chance, even with the Fropali supporting us.” Jensen was blunt and unflinching. “Aldis has an idea, and I think it’s a good one.” Jensen shrugged.

“Well?” Misha asked, shooting Aldis an encouraging smile.

“I think we need to ask the Licinians for help—look, some of them _engineered_ our ancestors. There’s gotta be a like-minded faction out there today.” Aldis hurriedly told Misha the rest of his plan.

“You could be gone a long time. You might not make it back, and we might not be in any position to help,” Misha said, reflectively. His right elbow was perched on his left hand, his right hand cupping his chin. It was a pose that reminded Jensen of simpler times, of a life long gone. He and Misha, happy together at home in Seattle… a life they’d never know again.

“I could die. You could die. If I’m really unlucky, I could expose all of you and endanger everyone. I know. But we’re _fucked_ if I don’t try.” Aldis shook his head. “This is me talking as an officer trained in intelligence. I’m not bitter because my family’s missing. I’m thinking about all the little kids out there who won’t have futures if we don’t find a way to protect them. I’m begging you, let me do this. I’ll take whatever precautions you want. Suicide pill, dead-man’s switch, I’ll do it.”

Misha was silent for a moment, and Jensen could see the thoughts tumbling through his mind. “Captain Hodge, you have a go. Confer with Ackles and Harris for mission planning—and bring Cassidy in for a medical consult. As soon as we leave the planet, you can leave for Licinian space.”

“But—” Harris protested.

“Colonel, that’s enough,” Misha countered. “I’m not happy with this either, but we have to do it sooner or later, and Aldis is the most logical choice.” He reached up and rubbed at his head, as if surprised it was wet. “Harris, Padalecki, Ackles, Padalecki, Cassidy, debrief, bedroom, now. I think we got a location on the heart of our problem, but none of you are going to like it,” he added as he strode off for the bedroom. “Nicki, Alona, you can come too if you’d like.”

That was when they’d learned ORDA was operating an overlapping jamming field covering 92% of the surface area of the Earth, and they were running it, along with a lot of other programs, out of a compound at a new ORDA base in Kansas.

“It explains why Dr. Torrington thought he’d heard they were shipping people to Kansas. I bet ORDA’s detaining people at the same location,” Katie said.

There were holes of course. Like Katie, and to a lesser degree Jensen and Nicki, had discovered in their flight, the tracking system had some blind spots. Frequent wormhole traffic two and from the same points tended to get jumbled together. ORDA’s tracking algorithms weren’t always good at differentiating between the wormholes, so opening an aperture into a high-traffic area was a good way to move around undetected. Of course, most of those high traffic areas were inside ORDA bases. Which was useful, since they were trying to rescue trapped, incarcerated fellow Naiians, many of whom were being warehoused in ORDA bases, but also a problem, since getting spotted was much more likely. There was also the problem of the jamming fields, which now blanketed some of the bases.

The tracking algorithm was weaker at altitude, sometimes shorting out altogether, so in some places, they could jump in and out as long as they stayed high above the surface of the Earth, jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper or mountain to mountain.

And then there was the ruse Katie and Jared had both figured out on their own. Open enough wormholes from the same origin point, or set of origins in close proximity, and the algorithm’s ability to track broke down until the program couldn’t sort out the opening or closing apertures or link them together. Open enough wormholes, and you could actually cause the program to _miss_ the exit points completely. 

Ever since the news bulletin had first aired, Genevieve had holed herself up in a corner with all the tech they had salvaged and scavenged. She’d pulled a lot more data than from ORDA’s servers during their initial escape than Jensen had realized, and she’d been running through it ever since, looking for anything that might help them. With Katie and Jensen’s help, she was able to reconstruct the wormhole tracking algorithm and run simulations to determine how many wormholes it would take to mask an exit point.

“Twenty-five,” Genevieve announced to the room at dinner on their fifth day at Mrs. Costa’s. 

Aldis and Alona had just returned from looting food from one of the nearby closed convenience stores. They were trying to keep Mrs. Costa’s cupboards well-stocked, but there was little they could do without drawing attention to themselves.

“What’s that?” Misha asked.

“Wormholes,” Jensen said, understanding immediately. “It’s how many wormholes we have to open to jam the system and mask one exit aperture. Over how much time and what area?” he asked. 

“No more than thirty seconds, spread of 100 square meters,” Genevieve replied. “I’ve run the numbers eleven times. This is it. This will make the system fail.”

“If we wanted to go more than one place,” Jensen asked, glancing at Aldis and Harris. “So we can split up, cover more ground. Check on some of the other bases…”

“You mean, could we open 100 wormholes in 30 seconds and mask four exit apertures? Probably,” she bit her lip, “ _maybe_. I didn’t test for that. It might be unpredictable. I would suggest four different locations, not simultaneous. Spread out by say… ninety seconds?”

“Can we be sure _which_ wormhole they’ll lose track of? I mean it would suck to open 25 wormholes then _smack_ ,” Misha clapped his hands for effect, “we go and step through one that they have tracked and they nab us.”

“It’s always the 25th wormhole,” Genevieve said, sitting down at the table. 

Jensen realized her hands were shaking. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. 

“The system has a memory buffer. It searches for wormhole activity, collects the data on each outgoing aperture, and then tracks it to its probable end point; if it finds an end point on _Earth_ it sends back a confirmation signal. Intraplanetary exit apertures have a different energy signature than exit apertures that come in from offworld,” she added. “If an outgoing wormhole goes to an extra-planetary destination, the system records that and runs the trace accordingly although it doesn’t return specific coordinates, more like a path someone with a WMD can follow. Wormhole activity in the same place over a relatively short period of time requires the system to store all those wormholes in the same memory buffer. There’s a slight lag in the confirmation time, more when it’s an extra-planetary wormhole, to sort out which aperture went where, the system hangs onto all that data. Do it enough and the buffer fills up, the system crashes and kicks any incoming data to a new buffer. Twenty-five wormholes within those parameters and the twenty-fifth one crashes the system. The system doesn’t _lose_ the other data, so it will eventually sort out the others, but it can’t track where number twenty-five went. Number twenty-six gets a new memory allocation and starts the process over.”

“So we wouldn’t want to do four separate clusters at the same time, because we might miscalculate which wormhole the system dropped,” Jensen extrapolated.

“Exactly. And I wouldn’t recommend trying again in the same place, because once ORDA sees this happening, they’ll come out in force.”

“So it could work,” Jensen said, excited.

“Could it?” Harris asked. “Could someone actually _do_ that, open that many wormholes without dropping dead? I mean the hypoglycemic shock—”

“It’s possible,” Katie answered, emerging from her shift in the bedroom. “Do the wormholes all have to come from the same symbiote?”

“No,” Genevieve answered.

“We’ve got,” she counted on her fingers, “seven symbiotes, I stocked up on glucagon kits. We’ve got glucose tablets and the buddy system.”

“But we can’t just split up willy-nilly,” Harris protested. “Colonel, you, Jensen, and Katie have three symbiotes between you, and you’re all planning to go to the same place. Emma and I have two symbiotes and we’re headed in one direction, but Aldis is planning to go off by himself, and Nicki and Alona have just one symbiote between them, and Alona’s never practiced.”

Jensen flinched at the mention of Nicki and Alona going leaving the group. He’d gotten used to having his friends back and more than a week on the run and in hiding had forged strong bonds between them. But Alona had had an important realization, and Nicki had agreed with her, and together they had hatched a plan that would take them away from the others. They were going to stay on Earth for the time being. 

_“Someone needs to stay here, help other Naiians find safety. Get people ready to leave if the opportunity arises. We can do that—we_ want _to do that. You’ll just have to make sure you come back to Earth to get us,” Alona had said._

Shaking himself, Jensen let it go, focusing instead on Genevieve’s new discovery.

“They can come with me,” Aldis interjected. “I’m going to stop in DC before I go to Paris.” 

They’d learned from Genevieve’s intel and a telepathic message from Summers, one of the officers who had escaped with Jake Abel, that ORDA’s Paris base was now being used as a detention and processing center for Naiians. Many of the missing had been sent there. 

“My parents were smart,” Aldis continued, “They both hoarded data. My dad could have reports—he might not have known what they meant, but they might provide some… insight. ORDA might have missed something. I have to look. I can jump to Paris from there, and Nicki and Alona can rent a car. Some creative disguise and a trip to one of my dad’s contacts for new IDs, and they can be on their way. Go set up the next great hope for the Naiian people.”

And so they found themselves, late that night, sneaking out of Mrs. Costa’s apartment after bidding her a tearful good-bye. They’d picked four buildings within the quarantine zone as their departure points. Misha had wanted to repeat the ventilation tower stunt, but with five people (including Jared and Genevieve) all making the trip to Texas to try to rescue Jensen’s family, it was impractical.

Instead, they wound up on top of the same building where Jensen and Katie had hid during their last flight. 

“Okay, we’re up first, and we’re running two minute windows,” Katie reiterated. “Misha, you’ve got 12 wormholes, Jensen 13, and make sure your last one is the one to your parents’ house.” They’d decided Katie would play medical officer and supervise the process rather than joining in. Since they had the option, it made sense to keep one person healthy to open wormholes. 

As they prepared, Jensen could see Jared getting antsy. He remembered what it was like, that first week after they took his symbiote before he got too sick. Beyond the constant ache of separation, there was a restlessness that never left him. He was so accustomed to being able to open a wormhole at will, the sudden deprivation was too much to take.

“On three, one, two, three,” Katie ordered as the timer she’d set for herself ran to zero.

Misha opened the first wormhole, then another, with Jensen following closely behind.

It was getting easier to control multiple wormholes. Jensen left the first six open simultaneously, before he started to notice the drain. He let those close and started on another six, keeping the locations far flung. He opened one to M’Nell, just for the hell of it. By the time those six were finished, he was feeling decidedly woozy. Wobbly. 

“Done, Jensen go!” Misha cried.

Jensen let the second set of wormholes close, the rooftop wavering in front of him now. It had been 26 seconds. He had to act now, or there wouldn’t be time! Focusing, reaching out, he _connected_ with his parents’ home, he narrowed the concentration, thinking, searching for a place that would give them cover, finally settling on their back porch, which was shielded from view by the tall hedge that surrounded the backyard. At 28 seconds, he locked on. At 29 the wormhole opened. _Just under the wire._ Number twenty-five. “Come on!” He shouted at the others, not caring if he made noise. ORDA would already be on its way there.

In a rush, they ran through the wormhole, one, two, three, four, and finally Jensen followed as number five. He had barely emerged on the familiar wood planks of his parents’ porch when the aperture snapped shut with a resounding crack. 

Somewhere above him a light flicked on. 

The world was swimming around him; he was on his hands and knees, not sure how he got there.

“Shit, hold him,” Katie cursed.

“Whoa, Misha, you okay.” That was Jensen.

“I’ve got the kits, here.” That sounded like Genevieve. 

“Come on Jensen, don’t pass out on me,” Katie said.

Warm hands were tracing over his arms, untucking his shirt. He felt a jab on his abdomen. It was familiar somehow, but he couldn’t place it.

“What in the world?” said an alto voice that was strangely familiar.

“Oh fabulous timing,” Katie complained again. “Jensen, your parents are here.”

Something stirred in Jensen and he looked up. “Mom?” he asked, face-to-face with his mother for the first time since discovering he was a Naiian. Of course his stomach chose that moment to puke all over her porch.

_Chapter 16_

Later, after Katie had checked them all out and Donna had made tea, and Allan had pulled all the curtains closed, the story came out. 

It was halting, awkward, and full of interruptions for questions, exclamations of horror, and the like, but they got through it, with Jensen doing most of the talking, Katie covering the medical aspects, and Misha filling in some of the background.

Jensen watched as his mom kept glancing sideways at Misha, seeing her son-in-law in a very different light.

“But Misha, you were always so dedicated to _peace_ and environmentalism,” Donna said at one point. 

“I still am,” he answered, giving Jensen’s hand a squeeze. “But like you might have gathered from the news broadcasts. ORDA doesn’t give you much of a choice. I’ve had to do some things I regret. Lying to Jensen for years is one of them, but being a Marker,” he glanced at Jensen, “a _Naiian_ —is who I am. It’s who Jensen is. Space and wormhole travel, they’re a part of us, a part of our history—a part of _your_ history. I would never give up the opportunity to know all that. To visit the worlds I’ve seen. To understand.”

“Even though the government tried to murder you, left Jensen to die? Even though they’ve branded you as terrorists?” Alan asked, a vein throbbing in his temple.

“Even then,” Misha agreed. “We’d hoped we could change the organization from the inside, but things changed too fast. Now—”

“There’s a planet we can go to, where we’ll be free” Jensen finished. “I’d like it if you guys could come… or at least think about it. You’re not going to be safe here.”

“What do you mean?” Donna asked.

And so the other stories came out. About Jared’s missing family. Aldis and his quest to coordinate with more ORDA bases. Mass disappearances.

Through it all, Jensen’s parents were accepting, understanding. Jensen could already feel their mental presence around him, and he realized his parents had probably always used their telepathy even if they weren’t aware of it. Like Jensen, once the understanding was there, the skill came easily. 

Although they were still more or less trapped inside, needing to stay out of any prying eyes, they settled into a sort of rhythm, regrouping and relaxing. Genevieve set up her satellite connection again, and began formulating plan with the other escapees around the world. They could do it. They could bring down the jamming system, short out the tracking programs, and get their people off the planet. 

It was all going well.

Then Jensen’s little sister, MacKenzie showed up and all hell broke loose.

~~~

“You, you what? You became some kind of _special forces_ soldier? And now you want us to go with you? What the fuck, Jensen! I—I never turned my back on you, not when mom and dad almost disowned you, not when you were freaking the fuck out about being gay, not when you decided to come out, and not when you finally pulled your head out of your ass about Misha. But this—I just don’t—” The tirade stopped and Mac shook her head, turned, and started to storm out of the room.

“MacKenzie—wait, please,” Jensen said, running after her.

The door creaked, slammed, and rattled on its hinges as she threw it aside, but MacKenzie stopped. Chest heaving, her back bowed with every breath.

“Please?” he repeated, hope vibrating like a hummingbird in his throat.

“The military,” she began, still with her back to her brother, “that’s bad enough, but—” She whirled around turning on her heel, “Special Forces? That stands against everything you believe in. What the fuck—”

“It’s not _like_ that—”

 _Thump_! The floor reverberated as she stomped her foot. “Not like what? Is this the only military in the world where Special Forces means something different? You mean you’re not spying and infiltrating and going on crazy fucked up missions where civilians get killed or you just blow people away because they’re _bad_ , but it’s okay that you’re serving as judge, jury, and executioner, because some goddamn general holed up in a nuclear silo said so? Jensen,” she pleaded, “we’re talking about the strong arm of the corporate hegemony, the thugs and minions who keep the 99% in line so the 1% can profit from their suffering. And they’re so blind and mindless they don’t even realize the people they’re answering to _are_ the 1%. These are the same people who say your life is forfeit because you’re a _homosexual_ and it’s your evil corrupt fault you don’t like to stick your dick in some chick’s cunt—”

“Mac, stop it please…” Tears were in his eyes. It hurt to hear is sister using such hateful words, talking about him that way, demeaning herself—he knew it was just to prove a point, but it _stung_. He ached like he’d been punched, and he didn’t know how explain, how to make her understand.

“No, you come back here after what, two _years_ without talking to us, and you’re all ‘oh hi, by the way, remember how I’d dedicated my life to serving the common good, putting other people’s needs before mine, and respecting people’s right to determine their own existence?’” Back and forth, back and forth, she was pacing now, traversing the tiny space between the desk and the couch over and over again. The room was too small, and Jensen felt trapped. In her furor, she was blocking the door. “‘Well, forget that, no, I’ve found my true calling in life, I’ve decided to become an enforcer for the Man. I can break into some poor starving kid’s room and murder her parents in front of her because they’re _bad people_ and wanted to eat and breathe and have clean water and make a living wage!’” 

She picked up the wooden desk chair and threw it against the wall above the couch. _Crash!_ One leg splintered off, forcing Jensen to flinch and duck while another punched a sizeable hole through the drywall, kicking up dust and spraying the room with plaster fragments. Not satisfied and unable to contain her rage, MacKenzie chucked what remained the cracked birch frame at Jensen, forcing him to skip backwards out of the way until he was pressed against the wall. He threw up his hands for protection, closing his now-damp eyes and turning his head away. The frame missed hitting him by the narrowest of margins, but skidded after it landed, spinning like a top, coming to a stop only after smacking him in the shin. 

Panting, Jensen kicked the chair away. “Mac, please,” he repeated. “It wasn’t like that, and _I_ didn’t have a choice!”

“Hmmph!” Balling her hands into fists, she resumed pacing. 

Jensen could see blood dripping along the edge of her palm from where a jagged splinter had torn a gash in her palm. Tears flowed freely down Jensen’s cheeks. “I am being serious, and I’m begging you—”

“Can you even hear yourself? I mean seriously, you’re defending—” Her hands slapped her thighs, hard. Pointing at herself, she said, “I’m a _journalist_. I have a degree in political science. I spent a year and a half researching and conducting interviews on how power imbalances skew our perceptions and values—I talked to Special Forces soldiers who honestly didn’t see the people they targeted as human beings. The training, the propaganda, it _dehumanizes_ —”

“Yeah, well, I’m not _human_!” 

Alabaster pale, eyes wide, mouth open, MacKenzie let out a gasp of shock and flinched like she’d been slapped.

“I’m _not_ human,” Jensen repeated. Hands and body shaking, he managed to push himself off the wall and pull himself to his full height. Through their bond, he could feel Misha’s concern rising to panic levels—Jensen was giving off the same neurochemical signals he would in a battle where he faced an immediate threat to his life. He tried to send calming signals, let Misha know he was okay, but seeing as he really _wasn’t_ , the effort just made him woozy. “Damn it!” Out of ideas, Jensen settled for opening the connection and giving Misha an all access pass to the scene in Mac’s bedroom. His control was nonexistent though, and he could feel Katie flinch as his thoughts and emotions bled out into the minds of the other telepaths. She was coming now too, had met up with Misha, but they both understood what was going on, and weren’t rushing. 

It was probably for the best, Mac would need someone to talk to who wasn’t family when this was all said and done. She wouldn’t accept it coming from Jensen, and frankly the idea of explaining to his little sister her inherent inhumanity wasn’t high on Jensen’s list of experiences he ever wanted to have. Maybe Katie would be able to answer some of her questions.

“Wh—what?” Mac asked, obviously struggling to get her mouth to work.

“I’m not human. Never have been.” He shook her head. “Actually _none_ of us are, not me, not Misha, not mom, not dad, not Josh, and not you.”

Terror and betrayal burned in her eyes, and she stumbled, stepping on her own foot and falling backwards against the desk. “You—you’re crazy,” she tried to convince herself. “You, what, think this is funny? Or is this just your twisted way of trying to tell me you’ve always been an asshole—”

“Approximately two hundred fifty thousand years ago,” Jensen began, his voice distant, but steady, “a civilization called the Licinians exhausted the resources on their homeworld. They were a powerful people capable of interstellar travel by ship and personal wormhole. Rather than trading for more resources or learning to make do with less, they set out to colonize other worlds. They didn’t like to share, so they got in the habit of razing the planet before settling down, killing any other sentient life they found. Eventually they tried to colonize another planet inhabited by sentient beings with a comparable level of technological development. They fought back, there was a war, and eventually the Licinians signed a peace treaty. As a condition of the treaty, they agreed to restrict themselves to terraforming only worlds without sentient life. For a while the Licinians abided by the terms of the treaty, but their leaders were greedy, and somewhere along the way they figured as long as no one found out, they could take any planet they wanted. So they started scouting worlds, looking for planets far from their territory, not near any of their allies or enemies, out of the way worlds whose inhabitants weren’t technologically sophisticated. When they found worlds that had what they wanted they would send a team to destroy the sentient life so they could take it or its resources, only they’d make it look like some environmental cataclysm had befallen the planet. Volcanic activity, climate change, they’d exploit it so if anyone came looking it would seem like the Licinians had taken over a dead world.” 

Jensen broke off, staring at his sister and waiting. This time there was no explosion, no protest. Mac wasn’t calling him crazy or accusing him of telling a sick joke. Shell shocked, she was waiting, listening, ready for him to continue, so he did. 

“A little over five thousand years ago, the Licinian government sent a team to destroy Earth. They’d scouted the planet before when humanity wasn’t as widespread or advanced. The team was impressed by how far the humans had come, how quickly their society was developing, so they contacted their superiors and told them what they’d found.” Jensen shook his head. “No one cared. Earth had valuable mineral resources the Licinians would need, and even after suffering a few climatic catastrophes, in a short few thousand years it would make a great home for more Licinians. So the reclamation team went about their work getting the Earth ready for cataclysm. Only when the time came to push the button, the team decided not to do it. They faked an accident, convinced the Licinians that Earth’s atmosphere would be toxic to them for the foreseeable future, and went into hiding, living out the rest of their lives on Earth. They realized humanity was still vulnerable. Eventually the Licinians would come back, and they’d realize it was all a lie. Then they’d set out to destroy Earth—they’d have to, to cover their tracks, otherwise they might get caught for being the genocidal maniacs they were. If humanity wasn’t technologically able to defend itself, all the renegade Licinians’ work would be in vain. So a few of the renegades decided to give the Earth an insurance policy. They engineered a way to make humans like them—regeneration, strength, environmental tolerances, telepathy, even the ability to use and control Licinian technology—they engineered the genetics that would give humans a fighting chance. We think they secretly exposed some humans to the modified genetics. To ensure others acquired the genetic modifications, they left behind their biotechnology in places people would be exposed to it. They also left other behind technology—like the biomechanical devices that allow people to control and create wormholes. Time passed, the humans who were exposed reproduced and sought out others like themselves. Some of them found the technology and learned to travel to other worlds, and when the Licinians came back, Earth was ready. We held them back, we bought time until backup arrived, and we exposed the Licinians’ wrongs to the universe.

“We are their descendants, Mac. We look human on the outside, we can breed with humans, and most of us can even fool the doctors into thinking we’re human, ‘cause most doctors don’t know there’s another option, but we are _not_ human. We never were.” Jensen jabbed a finger at his chest. “ _I_ am not human. And when ORDA found that out they made me one of their soldiers. They needed us to do their dirty work, and I did it.”

When he finished speaking, Jensen was panting and shaking. It was a grossly simplified version of the last quarter-million years of galactic history, but it was also the first time he’d told so much of the story aloud. It was the first time he’d _come out_ about his heritage to anyone who didn’t already know the score. It was—liberating—but also terrifying. To the uninitiated, it sounded like utter bullshit, he knew that. And the last thing he wanted was his sister to think he was a raving lunatic or a liar and charlatan who told crazy stories for sympathy. After all, this wasn’t all about _him_. They were facing genocide and he needed to save his family’s lives, not send them running for the hills.

“A—are you saying we’re descended from aliens?” Mac asked at last, her voice squeaking.

“Not exactly. More like alien-engineered hybrids. A significant portion of our genetic heritage was engineered by aliens. They developed it using technology and resources from an alien world, and, yes, the gene complex was based off their DNA, so in a sense, some of our DNA is _alien_. But they didn’t mate with humans or anything like that, and we’re not sexually compatible with them.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We’re sexually compatible with humans, which yes, implies we’re not a separate species, since one of the hallmarks of speciation is the inability to interbreed. But it’s not that simple. You could call us a distinct subspecies, only if a human and a Naiian reproduce, the offspring is _always_ Naiian, and fertile. It’s not like we’re mules or something. On the surface seems like a type of hyper-dominance, but it’s actually a type of engineered compatibility. It’s not that Naiians have a particular set of dominant alleles. We have gene complexes humans don’t; they’re just interspersed on the same number of chromosomes, and they self-replicate—if a child inherits Naiian genetic markers from only one parent—”

“They duplicate themselves so a child has a full set,” Mac finished, looking shocked. Eyes wide, and mouth the shape of a giant “O,” she asked, “how did I know that.”

“I was telling you, and you reached a logical conclusion,” Jensen said, knowing it wasn’t the truth (well not the _whole_ truth, anyway). But the thing was, Mac would know it too, and he was counting on that to demonstrate the answer.

“No.” She shook her head emphatically. Combined with her still-wide eyes, her appearance made Jensen a little dizzy. “No,” she repeated. “I mean, that’s a part of it, it was logical, but I didn’t _make_ that conclusion. I was still trying to figure out what you were saying because it sounded— _sounds_ completely batshit crazy—and then, _bam_! I just knew the answer. I mean—” She was pacing again, less frantically this time, focused intently on her feet as if they held all the answers. Her hands were windmills chopping through the too-heavy air in the room. “I _knew_ … The answer was inside me, talking to me.” She froze. “How did you?”

“Telepaths,” was Jensen’s one word answer.

“I can’t read minds,” Mac shot back, crossing her arms in defiance.

“No, we can’t _read_ minds, but you do have about two dozen neurotransmitters that humans don’t, lots of special pheromones and hormones too, and your brain has the built-in hardware to send and receive information using those. You’re untrained and until about two minutes ago, you were unaware, but you have an innate, inborn ability to share thoughts, concepts, perception, emotions, memory, sensation, anything you can experience, you can experience _with_ someone. When a bunch of Naiians are together we tend to experience some telepathic bleed off—particularly strong emotions, focused thoughts, extreme sensations—it’s like everyone in the group picks up on an echo of it unless you try very, very hard to keep it to yourself. It’s actually pretty cool and a really good survival mechanism.”

MacKenzie seemed to be listening, but Jensen wasn’t sure if he’d gotten through to her.

 _And when we need to, we can communicate nonverbally._ Out loud he said, “You know when we were kids, how Mom and Dad seemed to _know_ the second something was wrong? You know how when I came out,” his voice cracked, “Mom and Dad were so hostile at first, but then, everything changed. And they apologized and they said they believed me and accepted me—it’s because they could feel my pain and how certain I was, how happy I was when I was in love.”

“Jensen, that’s impossible.” Mac shuddered. “What you’re saying.”

His hand slipped to his belt released the symbiote. He held it in his hand, a peace offering to his sister. “This is my symbiote. It’s a biomechanical life form that allows me to manipulate wormholes.”

Mac stared at the glowing egg-shaped device, and laughed, more a tearful hiccup than a happy bark. “You mean like Stargate.”

“Well, without the Stargate. Just the wormhole bit. And they’re not limited in where they go—there’s not just one place on a planet. I could open a wormhole from here to you, and step out beside you.”

“Then show me,” Mac said, crossing her arms over her chest, still defiant.

 _Of course_ , Jensen’s spirits fell. “I can’t show you, not here. They’d be able to track us, that’s assuming they’re not jamming this area. Intel says ORDA has a base not far from here. We’re not sure what they’re using it for, but…” He realized Mac would have no clue what he was talking about. 

Instead of confusion though, he saw shaken certainty playing across her face. “You’re serious. That—that thing’s real. It’s not just a paperweight.”

“Funny,” he snorted bitterly, “that’s what I thought it was when I first saw it.”

“You’d—you’d die without it, and someone tried to take it from you?” Mac answered, uncertainly, hands flying up to cover her mouth. “Jensen who are they. What is—”

“The same organization I worked for, they betrayed us. Someone high up in the command decided they don’t like Naiians. They believe in Earth for humans, and they don’t want our kind of dirty, alien scum littering the surface of their precious planet. Never mind that we’re _from_ here too and that we literally saved the planet, or that they never would have gotten off the damn rock if not for us, but yeah. We’re too different to live.”

MacKenzie hesitated looking torn, then in a burst of Naiian speed, she closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around her brother in a hug. “I believe you. Oh god, I believe you,” she whispered into his ear.

“Ah-hem.” The sound of a clearing throat came from the doorway.

Jensen turned around to find Jared standing there. “Um, we need to talk, and Katie’s ready to talk to Mac.”

“What’s going on?” Jensen asked.

“It’s about your brother.”

_Chapter 17_

“Did you hear the latest bullshit they’re peddling on the news?” Genevieve asked, causing Misha to jump. “They’re saying we’re spreading a virus—a new pandemic. It supposedly affects brain chemistry making people do and believe crazy things before it kills them.”

“So no one will ever believe us,” Misha answered with a sigh. He didn’t want to move from his seat. Some days the path looked so impossible.

“Yep,” Genevieve agreed. “And they’ve used it as an excuse to start widespread _quarantines_. They’re shipping people off for _treatment._ “

“They’re sending us to concentration camps,” Misha murmured, blinking his eyes shut against the tears that threatened to fall. His family was out there, somewhere. He just hoped Nicki and Alona were successful. They planned to use their gifts to seek out other Naiians, help them live under the radar, avoid detection.

“You’re gonna fall,” Genevieve said, as she stepped up behind Misha.

“No I’m not,” he answered. Misha was sitting on the edge, balanced carefully on the balcony railing, looking out over the backyard of the Ackles family home. He could feel Jensen’s anxiety rising again, but he knew Katie was monitoring the situation, ready to step in, if anything went wrong. They’d come all this way, and they’d actually found Jensen’s family. They’d holed up together, out of fear for him, but they’d been here. And as far as anyone could tell, they were _really_ his family and not imposters, clones, cyborgs, or any number of sci-fi scenarios 

“What are you thinking?” Genevieve asked as she sidled up to Misha, hooking one leg over the balcony bannister.

Misha glanced sideways at her. It was—dangerous, precarious—she could fall. Then… so could he. Two stories up, perched on the balcony overlooking the Ackles homestead’s backyard.

Genevieve caught his eye, gave him a minute shake of the head, and glared.

 _Message received._ It was her way of saying she trusted him. They could _both_ fall. Only Genevieve would likely plummet to her death or serious maiming, while Misha could—probably would instinctively—open a wormhole and land safely on the ground or in the location of his choosing. But Gen wasn’t afraid. She _trusted_ him. 

Misha’s heart sped up. He didn’t want… couldn’t trust himself… how was he supposed to? Tony had warned him, tried to prepare him, but he wasn’t good enough. Gen. Ferris had promoted him, made him a full Colonel, and she’d done it before ORDA started disappearing people. She’d had faith in him, in his leadership, and he just wasn’t good enough. And here was Genevieve, a civilian. A human civilian, and she had put her trust in him. The universe had been turned upside down, and nothing Misha had tried had stopped it. He was going to get them all killed—

_We’re all dead anyway._

Despite all that, Genevieve trusted him to find a solution, to save them, to save every Naiian, and their families. She was putting her life in his hands and smiling about it. Maybe it wasn’t Misha’s fault after all?

She was still looking at him, inquisitive and respectful while he quietly freaked out. He might as well answer. 

“Why is Jensen’s family still here? Why are _they_ okay?” It was a trap, it had to be. There was no other explanation. 

“Jared’s brother and sister-in-law are safe,” she said quietly. 

He turned so fast he nearly unseated himself from the railing. “When?”

“Mrs. Costa just forwarded an email to one of the alias accounts Captain Abel set up. Jeff nearly got himself caught.”

Misha looked at Genevieve questioningly.

“We got to him first. He was running internet searches. He’d pieced things together from the news reports. He was running internet searches on the mountain range in Afghanistan where Jared was exposed. It pinged the search program I set up, and Aldis intercepted it.”

“Aldis?” Misha asked, “I thought Aldis would be in Paris by now.”

“He is,” Genevieve nodded. “The message said his part of the prep is going well. He’s got at least a thousand still alive he can get out if the jamming comes down.” She swung her legs almost playfully, bumping Misha’s shoulder. “It’s not all gloom and doom you know.”

“So Jeff—what happened?” Misha asked. There had been no sign of any of the Padaleckis anywhere near their homes or businesses. 

“He and Rachel ran to Washington—”

Misha frowned. 

“DC, not Washington State,” Genevieve clarified. “Nicki and Alona made it that far. They caught up with them. They’ve gone to ground. I just talked to Katie, she’s going to see about getting medical information to Jeff.”

“He’s a doctor, right?” Misha asked, trying to remember. His mind had been crammed so full of war, pain, defense, desperation, and survival for so long, it seemed he’d lost most of the niceties and subjects of small talk like details he used to know about his subordinates’—his _friends’_ families. 

“Yeah, Katie says they need someone who knows how to care for Naiians. Someone you can go to, that’s safe. There were—”

“What else was in the latest datadump?” Misha asked warily.

“Hospitals have started reporting… anomalies. Low body temperatures, penicillin allergies, that kind of thing. Stuff that would have never attracted attention. They log it, call in the troops…”

“And then ORDA runs a full DNA scan, isolates the Naiians from the folks who just have low body temps and unfortunate allergies, and whisks them away to one of their…” Misha gulped unable to say the words. “And they’re never heard from again. Or they’re ‘cured.’” God! He buried his head in his hands. “How can we leave? How—”

“You wanna stay and fight? Declare open war on ORDA while they’ve got ignorance and propaganda on their side? So they can call up the entire human race?” Genevieve prompted. “I’ll stand by you. We’re all in this ‘til the end. We’re long past the point of no return.” She placed her hand on his shoulder, steading him. “But the way I understand it, there are people on two planets that need us in the long run. They’re counting on us not to go out with a bang. Not here. Not now. So that means we run and we take as many people with us as possible.”

Letting out a long sigh, Misha straightened up. “You’re right, of course. And I’m glad to hear at least someone’s family is safe,” he added. “But—”

“But?” Genevieve prompted.

“Jared’s family’s human. Everyone in Jensen’s family, every blood relative, anyway, is Naiian. We know this. ORDA knows this. So why are they still here?”

“Because one of ORDA’s monsters got to Joshua Ackles a while back, about the time we escaped. They’ve been relying on him to feed them information, using his children’s lives as collateral.” Katie stepped through the doorway onto the balcony. “Jared is retrieving Jensen. I’m going to break the news to his sister.”  
Misha spun around, swinging his legs back over the railing and rising to his feet in one fluid movement. “How did you—”

“He was on his way over. Only he’s projecting _everywhere_. Jared and I interpreted it at the same time.”

“Does he know?” Genevieve asked. 

“No,” Katie answered. “But he suspects, and he’s terrified. Right now I’m wishing we had more personnel here because someone needs to pull an intercept and it could get very, very ugly, very fast.” She looked down at her hands.

“I’ll do it,” Misha whispered. “What’s his ETA?”

“Five minutes. We swept the garage. It should be a safe intercept point,” Katie replied.

“Prep Jensen in case this goes south,” Misha called over his shoulder as he rushed past Katie into the house.”

Five minutes later, Misha was in uniform, side arm drawn and ready, bathed in blackness by the shadows in the garage.

Right one cue, Jensen’s brother Josh pulled into the garage. All alone in a minivan. A solitary man lost and alone. Josh’s expression was so desolate, even in the dim light that Misha felt an extra pang of guilt for what he was about to do.

Josh turned off the engine.

Misha slipped out of his hiding place and rounded the van silent and stealthy like a cat.

Josh punched the steering wheel a few times before finally releasing his seatbelt and stepping out of the door.

Misha pressed the barrel of his 9mm to the base of Josh’s skull. There was no telltale click like in the movies. Just a cold steel barrel in a polycarbonate frame shoved forcefully against skin. “Don’t move.”

Joshua froze, his heart rate skyrocketing, the telepathic and empathic bleed off was so strong Misha was already getting a headache. A second passed then two, and Josh’s higher brain functions started to kick back in. He was thinking, deciding.

“And whatever you do, don’t even think about activating that transmitter,” Misha said, reaching out and grabbing Josh’s left hand, bending his fingers back, keeping him from making a fist. “In your palm huh? Bet it took you a week just to figure out how not to activate it all the time. Nothing like standing in front of the toilet and realizing you’re taking a piss for an audience.” The transmitters were one of the late General Lehne’s toys. He used to implant them in operatives and intelligence assets—mostly aliens working with ORDA or people on Earth who knew something, but not enough to get in-processed. It was Lehne’s twisted way of keeping tabs on them. The asset could activate the transmitter at will, covertly relaying information to their handler. The transmitter sent a scrambled adaptive signal that could piggyback on comms frequencies, cell phone transmissions, CB radio, and most other frequencies commonly in use throughout the galaxy. Of course, the handler could activate the signal at any time, which was going to lead to a lot of unpleasantness in the very near future.

“You would shoot your own brother-in-law, Misha?” Josh asked, his voice shaking with betrayal.

“I’m sure they told you what a monster I am.”

“They said the government made you. They said Jensen’s—they said—oh god,” Josh started to break down. He was shaking, the back of his head smacking against Misha’s gun barrel. “I’m sorry, please don’t kill me. They have my kids; they’re following Tracy.”

“Newsflash, Josh, I’m not the bad guy. And neither is Jensen.” It was pretty clear for all the coercion ORDA had done, they hadn’t quite broken Josh. Misha got the idea he would stand there and let Misha shoot him, if it came down to it. He didn’t want to be responsible for his brother’s death, no matter what he thought Jensen had done. “Although, I’m afraid we can’t have the rest of this conversation with your friends listening in.” He took his left hand off the gun and dropped it to his BDUs, reaching into one of the flap pockets and retrieving the device he needed. “Sorry,” he added before reaching out and pressing the stun gun to Josh’s wrist. He holstered his sidearm as he pulled the trigger on the stun gun.

Josh’s body shook, wavered, and fell landing in a heap at Misha’s feet. The door to the house swung open a moment later, bathing the garage in blinding light. Katie and Mac emerged from the doorway.

“It’s okay,” Misha reported to Mac. “I just stunned him. Katie just has to get a transmitter out of his hand and he’ll be fine.”

~~~

It was a few hours later when Josh finally did come around, part of that was thanks to the Naiian-safe sedatives and anesthesia Katie had administered before removing the transmitter. 

“I still think whoever’s behind this has got to have a sick Doctor Who fetish,” Jensen was quipping to Katie, feeling lighter than he had in weeks. “I mean come on, transmitter in the palm of your hand? What’s next? Eye-patch hard drives?”

Misha and Jared were both laughing.

“Someone’s awake,” Katie murmured. 

Jensen let her handle the “the Truth is Out There” aliens are real and you kind of are one, speech this time. He was still feeling awfully burned out from talking with Mac earlier.

“What, what about my kids? My wife?” Josh asked.

“We’ve got some kind of good news and some not so great news,” Jensen answered. “As part of our escape, we’re raiding several ORDA complexes, freeing the prisoners they have there. “The one that we,” he pointed around the room, “will be going to, is in Kansas. There are two juveniles in the processing records that match Jake and Eliza’s descriptions.”

“If our raid is successful, we can get them out,” Misha said softly, careful to look Josh in the eye in as brotherly a way as possible.

“But they’re going to have to leave Earth with the rest of us. There’s no way we can get them out and let them stay here on Earth,” Jensen added unable to meet his brother’s eyes. How did you do this? Tell your brother the only way you could help his kids was to take them off the planet, force them to leave behind everything they’d ever known.

“There are some people planning to go into hiding. Your parents—have volunteered to stay. But they will be leaving _here_ ,” Katie continued. “But you and your family can’t stay. You’re on ORDA’s radar and they’re not going to give you up easily. If you tried hiding, it would just be a matter of time before they caught up with you, or your wife, or your kids and made good on whatever threats they made in the first place.

“You—you want to take my kids through a wormhole, to another planet?” Josh asked, horrified. “Are you absolutely fucking nuts!? Oh my god. This is what they were talking about. You are crazy. Jensen, you’ve totally lost it, only you’ve convinced everyone else. Give me the transmitter. Give it back! I’m not going to l—”

“The transmitter is toast. We faked a call from you to your handler letting them know this was a false alarm. Your parents are having a vigil to pray for Jensen to turn himself in,” Katie interrupted. “You also sent this message to your wife. She is en route and should be here in an hour. Your father will intercept her when she arrives. He knows what to do. We can prevent any ORDA agents from getting a peek inside.”

“Leave her out of this! Let me go, you’re crazy.” 

“This, is a handheld scanner. I used it during the operation. This is what your DNA looks like—see, not exactly human. This—” Katie was holding up the now-fried transmitter.

“Get away from me!” Josh screamed. 

“Aw fuck it,” Katie sighed. “I know you know I’m telling the truth, Joshua, because you’re reading my emotions. I can feel you poking around in my mind. But since you’re being so stubborn you refuse to acknowledge the obvious. I’ve pulled a transmitter that looks like it hopped off the prop truck for a sci-fi show _out of the palm of your hand_.”

“I don’t—” Josh protested.

“Fine. We’re going with show and tell.” Katie turned to Jensen, “Pull up your shirt.”

And so it went, with Josh cycling through all five stages of grief a few times before his wife Tracy finally arrived. 

Jensen felt guilty about that. They’d had to stun Tracy too. It worked, though, and they shorted out the various electronics ORDA had stashed on her. Jensen felt a little bit like a marionette by the end of it, dancing on the end of a string. But he was relieved. Two days from now, they’d be in Kansas, and the plan would be in motion. If all went well, he’d get to rescue his sister, brother, sister-in-law, and niece and nephew. ORDA would have no hold over him. He’d be free.

Still, in the back of Jensen’s mind, he had that crushing, sinking sensation that everything was slotting into place a little too neatly. Something would go wrong. Something would fail. But how big would the catastrophe be when all was said and done?

_Chapter 18_

“What is it?” Misha murmured. They were both lying on their backs, staring up at the ceiling, still dressed, the bed still made. It had been a long day of preparations for the assault on ORDA’s Kansas base. They would be leaving before dawn in Jensen’s family’s cars. They’d located, removed, and jammed every ORDA tracking device or GPS-enabled component they could find, and they were counting on that and the cover of darkness to give them the lead they needed to make the plan work. 

Beside him, Jensen squirmed, wriggling closer to put his head on Misha’s right shoulder. “I was just thinking. If all goes well, this could be our last night on Earth.”

Misha’s heart clenched and he tensed up head to foot.

Jensen must have felt it because he turned his head and looked up at Misha, face concerned. “I meant that literally, not figuratively. If we get everyone out and don’t get caught, we’ll be leaving Earth and we don’t know if or when we’ll ever get to come back. It’s pretty trippy, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, trippy. Definitely trippy,” Misha replied, but he wasn’t really aware of what he was saying. His eyes were still locked on one of the glow-in-the-dark stars that peppered the ceiling of Jensen’s childhood bedroom. He couldn’t stop thinking about Tony’s warning and everything that had happened since then. Their people were threatened, disappearing, facing genocide and annihilation. What sacrifice would it take to save them? Plans _never_ worked out the way they were supposed to, and when they did, there was always a sinister downside. Misha didn’t need a reclusive old man’s astral projection to tell him that. Well over a decade of war and service had taught him that lesson first hand.

“You’re not even listening!” Jensen complained, giving Misha’s shoulder a playful swat.

“Yes, I am. Last night on Earth, literally, not figuratively,” he replied, finally tearing his eyes away from the stick-on constellations to look Jensen in the eye.

“Then what is it?” Jensen asked.

“I’m just thinking. Guess I’m a little worried about tomorrow,” he sighed. “It’s an awful lot to coordinate and pull off. Something’s bound to go wrong.”

“Wow, negative much,” Jensen scolded. “Of course _something_ will go wrong. That’s why we have contingencies and backups… and if it all goes to hell, we’ll still be able to get out. We might have to go on a bit of a wild goose chase, but…”

“You could never leave everyone else behind,” Misha said softly. 

“No, I couldn’t,” Jensen agreed. “But if it blows up in our faces, we can still take whoever we can with us and run.”

“Yeah,” Misha replied, his voice catching in his throat. _You will be tempted, so tempted, to act selfishly, to take Jensen and run away, save yourselves._ Tony’s words echoed in his mind. Oh he was tempted alright. The voice in his head was screaming at him to take Jensen and run, to hang on with both hands. But he couldn’t do that. “It’s just—you know it won’t be a walk in the park.”

“No, but what is? We’ve already saved the world once, at the eleventh hour. Can this actually be harder?” Jensen didn’t sound convinced. “Well, that’s what I keep telling myself.”

“It’ll be all right,” Misha answered, reaching over to caress Jensen’s cheek. His voice sounded hollow to his own ears, but he knew, on some level, it _would_ be all right. Because it needed to be. “I just wish we had more time.”

Jensen’s pupils flared, wide and scared.

“More time for just the two of us,” Misha continued, trying to backpedal, but not really succeeding. “I mean, last night on Earth right? After this it’s going to be all world-building and refugees and planning and fighting and politics,” he explained. “Not a lot of time for just us.”

“We’ll make the time,” Jensen said sincerely, squeezing Misha’s hand where it was stroking his cheek. In one fluid movement, Jensen rolled onto his side and surged up, capturing Misha’s lips in a passionate kiss.

Misha closed his eyes and breathed in, as if he could _absorb_ more of Jensen into himself. He opened up his mind and Jensen slid inside. He was happy to let Jensen take control. He couldn’t shake the pit of dread about tomorrow, he couldn’t forget Tony’s warning. He couldn’t stop feeling like _this_ was _it_ ; something was going to happen that was going to flip the universe on its head again. Change the fate of their people, perhaps, but what would it be? And what would he have to do?

Jensen broke off the kiss and pulled back. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Misha opened his eyes and looked up. Jensen’s eyes were so beautiful; green flecked with hazel, the light danced in them, sparkling. He could lose himself in those eyes. “Make love to me?” 

“Of course,” Jensen answered, breaking eye contact as he trailed kisses down Misha’s chin and throat, his hands already moving to unbutton Misha’s shirt.

“No—”

Jensen froze, his forehead wrinkling in confusion.

“I mean, wait.” Misha ran his hands up Jensen’s arms and pulled his face down for another kiss. Rigid and confused at first, Jensen soon relaxed, going limp and malleable, melting into the kiss, his tongue chasing Misha’s, matching lick for lick, thrust for thrust. When Jensen finally came up for air, Misha was panting.

“Wait for what?” Jensen asked, breathless.

“I want you inside me,” Misha blurted, catching the surprise in Jensen’s eyes. “I know we don’t do it that often, but tonight—I just want to feel you inside, everywhere.”

Jensen pressed a chaste kiss to Misha’s lips. “I’m not complaining.” He smiled. “It’s just a surprise, that’s all. You sure you’re all right?”

“Nervous. Worried about tomorrow. All the contingency planning in the world, it’s still kind of a huge thing to pull off. We’re leaving behind everything we’ve ever known.” It was the truth, even if not the whole truth.

“I know,” Jensen sighed as he dropped his head to rest on Misha’s chest. His fingers began working the shirt buttons open. “It scares the hell out of me, but—”

“We have no choice.”

“We have a choice, it’s just none of the other options are good ones,” Jensen corrected as he continued to undress Misha, rising to his knees to fumble with both their belts and flies.

“Doesn’t make it any less scary,” Misha murmured. 

Jensen tucked his hands in Misha’s waistband and tugged, pulling his pants and boxers down in one go and eliciting a gasp of pleasure. “Where’s the lube?” 

“Nightstand,” Misha panted. 

Jensen scrambled to grab the lube and was back in a heartbeat, turning his attention to working Misha’s shirts off. His touch was electric, sending little pulses of stimulation up and down Misha’s torso. 

“You’re really, okay with this? I mean, in your old bedroom, in your parent’s house?” Misha asked when Jensen paused to strip.

“Last night on Earth and all that, I think I can make an exception.” Jensen settled himself between Misha’s legs.

The lube on Jensen’s fingers had already begun to warm when the first questing digit made its way between Misha’s cheeks and sought entrance. He breathed out and relaxed, opening his body along with his mind, welcoming Jensen inside. Whatever happened, he needed to have this moment, to feel Jensen inside him, as if he could maybe keep him with him, hold Jensen inside forever. Jensen might be strong, but what about Misha? He needed Jensen to keep his own resolve.

“Are you ready?” Jensen asked.

Misha answered with a kiss, welcoming Jensen as he slipped inside. The separation between their minds was thinning, thinning, gone… He could feel the catch and pull of each stroke from both sides. He was so full and so tight, and Jensen was already on the edge. Without thinking, Misha hooked his legs around Jensen’s hips, crossing his ankles. 

“Mmm,” Jensen breathed.

“Harder,” Misha panted in reply. “Need—need to feel you. Want to feel you for days.” _For the rest of my life_.

“I’ve got you,” Jensen whispered, kissing Misha’s ear. “I’ve got you.” His strong arms encircled Misha, holding them closer together as Jensen’s dick slid in and out, as their emotions spilled over and blended and Misha knew…

He could see Jensen’s fear, taste it like his own. They were _both_ scared. The uncertainty of what would happen, win or lose, was eating away at Jensen’s resolve.

“Don’t be afraid,” Misha whispered. “If anyone can pull this off, it’s you.”

 _It’s us_ , Jensen clarified, thrusting harder. _I’ve got you. Never doubt it._

“I love you,” Misha breathed as he twined his fingers through Jensen’s hair, latching on. They moved together minute after minute, thrusting stroke for stroke, losing themselves in the sensation of their minds blending. With every movement it got harder to hold on. Misha had completely lost himself in Jensen and Jensen in Misha, and together they were spiraling towards climax. Misha was distantly aware of digging his fingers into Jensen’s back and hanging on for dear life. 

One of them moved—no, both of them—and Jensen’s teeth closed around Misha’s earlobe, biting as he sucked. It was the spark they needed to push them both over the edge, and Jensen came in long spurts buried deep inside Misha as Misha painted their bellies with stream after stream. 

They lay together panting, still telepathically melded and immersed. After a few minutes, Jensen began to pull out. 

“ _Stay_ ,” Misha said and thought, stopping Jensen and keeping them joined as one.

 _We’ll get all sticky_ , Jensen said in his mind. 

“I don’t care,” he whispered in Jensen’s ear. So they stayed, and Misha could feel Jensen’s heart beating alongside his own, could taste each breath, could sense every impulse of love and affection pulsing back and forth between them. 

_Tears_.

Misha was crying. Jensen could feel it too, only now, neither of them knew if the tears were happy or sad. _Overwhelmed_ , was about all either of their minds could make out. Then, later, finally, only after they’d laid together, breathing and feeling as one, until Misha began to drift off to sleep, did Jensen finally pull out. Misha was reluctant to lose the physical intimacy, but the mental connection stayed, even as Jensen went to grab something to clean them up with. Jensen was in his mind, in his heart, alongside Misha. Loving him. And he drifted off to sleep on what might be their last night on Earth secure in the knowledge that he was loved.

_Chapter 19_

As the small caravan of SUVs made its way across Texas and Oklahoma, Jensen couldn’t help thinking of Rose Tyler on her way to Darlig Ulv Stranden, and why not, his life was had been feeling like a fictionalized bad translation that yielded an even more painful pun for a while now. That, and well, once they left, were they trapped? Stranded? Never able to make it back.

His niece and nephew were supposed to be among the people they could rescue. He should be feeling something more than hollowness and dread, but how could he? Parts of his life that were never supposed to touch had been pressed together, and the seam that formed was threatening to destroy the entire universe, sucking them into the void, erasing them from existence.

They split up when they crossed the border into Kansas. Jensen hugged his parents, told them to be careful, and waved goodbye. He couldn’t even get out of the car lest the satellite footage pick him up and alert ORDA to their plans.

And that was it. A solitary vehicle headed east. Here their stories diverged. If they managed to evade capture they’d join Jared’s brother and Nicki and Alona, and lie low, keep themselves safe until—

And that was part of the problem. No one knew how that sentence was going to end.

As the individual cars took their separate routes to surround the base the calls started to come in. Genevieve relaying each new message to their encrypted network. Aldis was back and had made contact with Colonel Forrest, who would be coordinating their “ride” out of here. Summers and Lee were ready to go with their contacts in Paris. Abel and Kelly were in Okinawa, coordinated and ready to move. The others they’d reached checked in one-by-one from their places around the globe.

“It’s a shame no one will ever know about this,” Genevieve complained, as she slammed a loaded magazine into the M4 they’d procured for her to use. “I’m pretty sure this is going to count as the biggest jail break in history, and no one’s even gonna know what happened.” The weapons cache had been the last stop before they got into position. ORDA had weapons and tech stashed all over the place for use in “emergencies.” Most of the caches contained at least one Naiian or Licinian weapon or artifact, which was bad for ORDA, since it meant their secret hiding places acted like little homing beacons for Naiians.

“I prefer to think of it as liberation,” Jared countered, suiting up.

“Nah, it’s an uprising,” Katie said. “The folks inside are helping us rescue ourselves as much as we’re rescuing them.”

“Only it’ll be an uprising no one ever hears about,” Misha muttered. Then turning to address everyone, he shouted, “OK listen up people. We have one chance and one chance only to get this right. Hodge, good to have you back, man, even if it’s just for a little while.”

“Pleased to be here,” Aldis replied. He, Harris and Roberts had rejoined Jensen Misha, and the rest of the team that came from Texas just after they raided the weapons cache.

“You and Genevieve will work together, just like we discussed, hack the utility entrance on the southeast corner and follow it in to the auxiliary control room. Hodge you’re in charge of stunning and restraining any guards you encounter as you go along. Genevieve, you take out the security. Make sure any faked surveillance feeds you leave will fool them for at least an hour. When you get to the control room—”

“Create entrances for the rest of you, put the system on a timer to overload and get out. Plant a charge on the substation’s backup generators then exit to the northwest and rendezvous with Forrest at the shuttle,” Genevieve finished.

“And I’ll make sure Gen keeps her tablet running at all times,” Aldis added.

“Good,” Misha continued.

“Padalecki, Harris—”

“We wait for Gen’s signal, take the south entrance, plant three charges, and meet at the shuttle.” ORDA had developed a small fleet of shuttles that resembled harrier jets only they were the size of a small airliner, and their versatility extended beyond vertical takeoff and landing and included shields, artificial atmosphere and gravity, and enough power to reach a ship in high orbit around the Earth.

“Roberts, you’re with me, we’ll circle around, plant charges on relay towers one and two, then enter through the north entrance, take out the antennae on the roof, exit through the west wing, plant the explosives to take out the jamming field generators, and meet at the shuttle.” Misha turned to Jensen’s brother, sister, and sister-in-law, “You three, head right to the shuttle, Colonel Forrest will make sure you get on the right one. Don’t cross the perimeter; don’t be late.”

“Got it,” Josh answered as Tracy chorused a weary, “Yes sir,” and Mac just nodded.

“ And that leaves...”

“Jensen, excuse me, Major Ackles, and I will set charges on towers three and four, enter through the west, use the electronic key Genevieve creates to break into the hospital and west wing holding cells, and supervise evac. As soon as the first charge blows, we head back through the west wing, and exit through the Northwest, same as you and Roberts,” Katie answered shooting Jensen a wary glance.

“Good,” Misha replied, clapping his hands, his eyes flicked from one person to the next, sliding over Jensen. “Now that we’re all clear, comms check.”

The air filled with clicking noises.

“—And, from my mark, three, two, one, mark,” Misha punched the code into his tablet, which in turn sent a signal to the others’ tablets to begin a countdown. The schedule for each team had been uploaded with the tablet, and synced with the internal clock.

Genevieve and Aldis set off immediately, followed soon after by Josh, Tracy, and MacKenzie, who had a long way to go to reach the shuttle without drifting onto the base. Jared and Harris left next, exchanging hugs and handshakes, with Jared giving Jensen one last, long, lingering look before he ran away.

Then it was just Katie, Jensen, Misha, and Roberts.

“Misha,” Jensen said, his voice cracking.

“Don’t start this again, please,” Misha begged. “This” was the argument that had cropped up this morning after Misha had informed them they were going to have to use a different explosive and detonator in the jamming field generators because the generators themselves gave off too much interference. While all the other explosives would be keyed to the countdown Genevieve created through the base servers, the jamming generator would have to be manually detonated. There would be a delay, but still...

“I don’t want you doing it,” Jensen insisted. “Let me do it.” Misha had been feeling moody and distant recently. It was enough for Jensen to worry about his state of mind. Jensen would get the job done, but he wouldn’t be nearly so brooding or self-sacrificing about it.

“I told you, I want you and Katie doing the liberating. You’re far more relatable. There are civilians there, and they’re going to need reassurance.

“You could do that, or Roberts could—”

“Whoa, leave me out of this,” Roberts protested, holding up her hands in defense.

“Misha, I don’t like the plan. You could get trapped,” Jensen explained.

“Well I’m not really seeing an option. If the jamming field doesn’t come down, no one at this base is getting out of here. For that matter, we could all get trapped. That’s the risk we take. It’s what we signed up for.”

“Then let _me_ go. If we’re all facing the same risk, let me take the jamming—”

“No, absolutely not.”

“Why? Misha you’re not being logical,” Jensen protested.

“Because I’m your commanding officer, and I said so.”

“Oh, you’re my CO now, I’d like to talk to my husband, the one who’s been dark and brooding for the last three days, you see he won’t tell me—”

“It’s an _order_ , Jensen,” Misha shouted back.

For a moment silence fell. Jensen and Misha were both panting. Roberts was standing off to the side, trying to make herself invisible, and Katie was standing with her arms crossed, her expression sour.

“Well I just don’t want my husband to go and get himself killed,” Jensen admitted quietly.

Misha groaned, sounding like a wounded animal, then closed the space between them in two strides. “Jensen, I will do everything I can to get all of us out of there. But this _is_ my responsibility, and it’s too important for me to delegate it to anyone. Not even you, not even Katie. And I need you to get everyone out of here. We’ve got civilians and people who aren’t going to want to leave their homes, it’s gonna take a lot of persuasion and finesse, and there isn’t anyone better for the job.” His breath brushed against Jensen’s cheek as he pulled back. Hands resting on Jensen’s shoulders, he regarded Jensen with fascination and smiled before bending down to press his lips to Jensen’s forehead.

Jensen pulled Misha closer, arms snaking up his back, head resting gently on Misha’s shoulder. Jensen wanted to keep him there forever. “I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you, too.”

Jensen picked his head up off Misha’s shoulder and looked into his eyes. “You’d better do whatever you can to stay alive.”

“I will, I promise,” Misha ran one thumb over Jensen’s cheek. “Same goes for you.”

“I promise,” Jensen breathed, sealing his oath with a kiss. When they pulled back for air, Jensen felt a little more settled, but he could still feel the kernel of dread Misha seemed to carry with him.

“I’ll watch his back,” Roberts promised.

“You’d better.”

The alarms on their respective tablets beeped letting them know it was time to begin their assault, and with one lingering look they were off.

The first few steps of the plan were relatively easy. Katie and Jensen took turns scaling the heavily fortified antenna towers that broadcast the jamming frequency over and around the complex and contained relays for the satellite uplink for the wormhole tracking program. One hopped the fence, avoided the razor wire, and clambered up the access ladder while the other stood guard. It would have been easier if they had unrestricted use of wormholes, but it was easy enough.

Definitely less nerve-wracking than the next step, which had them sprinting a across a kilometer of open terrain to reach the west entrance. There was cover further to the west by the shuttleport where Jensen’s brother and sister-in-law were waiting, but it was too far out of the way. So they ran in a half crouch, bent at the waist, trusting Genevieve to have taken care of the electronic surveillance and hoping no one was looking out of the wrong window at the wrong time.

Once inside they crept along the halls, sticking to the shadows. They turned off the lights wherever they could to give themselves more cover, but the darkness attracted attention. Once, twice, three times, a uniformed ORDA service member happened across their path, and one, two, three times they worked together to stun and restrain the wayward guards.

“I’m starting to feel like Sam Fisher,” Jensen whispered, as he held the unconscious sergeant while Katie zip tied the man’s hands behind his back.

“Hmm?” she asked, finishing with the zip tie and moving on to the gag.

“You know, from “Splinter Cell,” the video game. All this skulking around in the shadows, taking out lights, subduing guards, hacking our way in... I feel like I woke up in a spy thriller.”

Katie just grunted as they lugged the unconscious man across the hall, around the corner, and into the shadows of a stairwell. As they released him, Katie said, “Ok, unconscious guard under the stairs, I see your point. Now let it drop. I’m terrified you’re going to jinx us and we’ll set off an alarm.

But the alarms didn’t sound, and little by little they made their way to the secure west wing, the part of the base where ORDA had stashed the unwanted and buried their secrets.

The electronic key Genevieve had created worked on the first try, exploiting a weakness buried deep in the software to trick the door lock into thinking it had received authorized biometric data when it really hadn’t. It was quick, dirty, and obvious as hell if someone audited the security logs. But then again, thanks to Genevieve no one was getting live security data anyway. 

The rest of the base had been very nondescript and base-like—industrial construction with a mix of rough concrete and painted cinderblock walls covering up the reinforced battle reinforcements and high tech security systems and a smattering of college dorm and public high school aesthetic thrown in for good measure.

But on the other side of the door it was a different world. It reminded Jensen of a hybrid of a modern prison, a super-sterile hospital, and a TV version of a psychiatric hospital. It was absolutely silent with not a guard in sight. The walls, ceiling, and floor were unaccented white. The doors had no doorknobs, latches, or obvious locking mechanisms. The only interface was a blank, slightly glossy panel about a quarter meter from each door. And every window was reinforced fireglass—that was one decidedly alien aspect. Jensen recognized it as a more robust version of the glass that surrounded Tony’s balcony. It was clear who ever had built this place didn’t want anyone getting in or out.

It didn’t take long for their entry to get noticed. Within 10 seconds of the door closing behind them, four ORDA officers—two wearing scrubs, the other two dressed as guards—came tearing around the corner. Katie and Jensen had known from the schematics Genevieve had recovered there was a nearby guard station/nurse’s station, and they were ready. Four well placed shock grenades later, they had four more incapacitated tangos and the attention of everyone in the room.

Behind the partially opaqued cell doors, people were murmuring. A child whimpered. Someone screamed.

“Think it’s time for introductions,” Katie mumbled.

“Don’t you—”

“Oh no, I’m on door locks,” Katie countered, holding up the tablet that contained the key and darting backwards towards the nearest door interface.

“Okay, fine,” Jensen grumbled. He cleared his voice and reached back for his high school drama class training to project his voice. “H—hello, everyone. Please, don’t panic. My name is Jensen Ackles, and I’m here to get you all out.”

“Ackles?” a man called from one of the cells. “I heard about you on television. They said you were a terrorist and a traitor, you were exposed to some kind of chemical weapon, and you’re going to infect everyone you come across.”

A few more nervous murmurs echoed through the cells nearest them.

Jensen couldn’t suppress a bitter chuckle. “Oh, and after they threw you in here, you believe everything they say?”

“Maybe,” the man replied after a few seconds silence.

More murmurs.

“Well, I can’t make up your minds for you, but I can tell you the truth,” he paused, listening.

The nearest cell unlocked with a click, and Katie gave a little whoop of victory before moving on to the next door.

“You look like some sort of thug,” the man who had been yelling at him said. The man was tall, with scraggly greying brown hair, and pasty skin. He looked like he hadn’t seen sunlight in at least a week.

“He looks like one of them, the uniform’s the same,” a wizened old woman in the same cell said.

“Well, I am, or at least I used to be. I’m a major in the Offworld Reconnaissance and Defense Administration, or ORDA, as you probably know them. But before that I was just a normal guy, a lawyer.”

A few people booed and one person in another cell called out “We don’t need no stinking lawyers.”

Katie chuckled as she made quick work of another three doors. “Heading around the corner,” she mouthed, and sent Jensen encouragement across their telepathic link.

He nodded as she slipped around the corner and out of sight. “I’m not making any apologies for my former profession,” Jensen replied, “but I was a normal guy. I had a... partner... and a home and a job and friend and family, and a lot of hopes for the future. But one day ORDA found me and they told me I wasn’t like other people. They said I was a Marker, and I had alien DNA that let me open wormholes and travel to different worlds. And they forced me to join their military and fight a war to defend this planet. And I did, because it was an honor to protect my home from people who wanted to destroy it. It was my privilege to keep Earth free for all of you. ORDA has been working in the background for almost 200 years to keep this planet safe. They operate in secret with the cooperation of the UN and most of the governments in the world. I fought in the war and I was wounded, but we won, so it was okay.”

He took a few deep breaths realizing he probably sounded absolutely batshit crazy to most of the people in his captive audience.

“But when the war was over, someone got the idea that Earth didn’t need people like me anymore. And they put laws in place to restrict our duties, then our movements. Then they started to round us up and take away the tools we use to travel to different worlds. We started to disappear. They killed some of us, they experimented on others, and many of us are still missing. But some of my friends and I, we escaped. But that wasn’t enough. They came after our families. Then they started looking for ordinary people who were like us. And they started sending them to bases like this.”

No one hooted or hollered now. People were listening.

“Look, I know some of you are ORDA officers like me, and you know most of this already. I say to you, it’s worse than you know. The Generals are disappearing. We are being executed. They’re going to try to cure us, or kill us, but they won’t let us go.

“Many of you know someone, a friend or family member who was in ORDA. You may not know that, but there’s someone close to you who you probably haven’t heard from in a while that you’re worried about. ORDA took you here to hurt them.

“The rest of you, you probably went to the doctor’s recently, and they noticed some things about you, realized you were like me. That’s why you’re here. We all share the same fate at their hands. We can offer you a way out.”

“How?” someone asked.

“We’re going to take you to a shuttle then through a wormhole to another planet where ORDA can’t find you, and you’ll be safe.”

“You can’t just expect us to leave!”

“Why should we believe you?”

“My family is still out there. What about them?”

People started shouting, screaming, some were yelling at Jensen, others were heckling their companions for doubting him.

Over the din came a long call “Jeeeeensen!! Uncle Jeeeeeensen!”

A flash of red hair and long limbs sprinted around the corner and collided with his legs. He looked down to see his eight-year-old niece clinging to him.

“You came! Where are mom and dad? The doctor said we’d never see them again!”

“They’re fine. They’re outside. At the shuttle. They’re coming with us,” he reassured her.

Katie came around the corner carrying a small, shaking child with similar red hair. “They had him in solitary,” she said, passing the boy to Jensen.

Looking down at the silent form of his nephew, it was all Jensen could do not to scream in rage. There were tear streaks all down Jacob’s cheeks. He wasn’t wearing socks or shoes and his clothes were paper-thin scrubs. His lips were blue and his skin was cold to the touch. 

_Oh god._ They’d been running temperature adaptation tests on a five-year-old.

The growing crowd of prisoners and detainees seemed to realize something profound was happening and they stayed silent.

Finally, another person came forward and spoke. “Look, I know what he’s saying sounds crazy, but it’s true. My name’s Gareth Lloyd and I was a first lieutenant in ORDA. My own commanding officers turned on me and threw me in here. I haven’t heard from my family in weeks and I don’t know where they are. I don’t want to leave, but if Major Ackles says he’s got a safe place for us to go,” he glanced at Jensen, “and a way out—”

Jensen nodded.

“Then I say we take him up on the offer. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to stick around until they take me back there.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder at a blank wall, or a wall that appeared to be blank, because the longer Jensen looked at it the more convinced he became that it wasn’t a wall at all, but was hiding a continuation of the ward.

“Thank you,” Jensen mouthed.

A few more ORDA personnel stepped up and identified themselves. Katie introduced herself as a doctor, and they began the tedious task of triaging people, matching their names against lists of the missing and inmate logs they’d intercepted, and guiding them out of the complex. The path Genevieve had cleared for them was well and truly _cleared_. She and Aldis had already completed their run through incapacitating stray personnel and unlocking the doors. It was just a matter of making sure the crowd stayed quiet and kept moving until Aldis and Gen took over on the other end. They were using another utility tunnel for the last part of the exit, it brought them out literally underneath the shuttle pad, but it had the disadvantage of being dark and cramped, and on several occasions he or Katie had to go back to tend to someone who’d tripped or fallen.

They were able to reunite Jacob and Eliza with their parents on the first run, and Jensen felt some of the stress lift knowing at least part of his family was safe.

They watched the time ticking away on the tablets. They had to have everyone out by the time the security system crashed and the charges blew. And the evac was taking longer than they’d planned. Some of the doors seemed unwilling to comply with the electronic key taking three or more passes to actually unlock. Some people were so distraught and distrustful they wouldn’t leave even when their cell doors were opened. Jensen and Katie had to make the choice to take the people unwilling, or leave them. They made an executive decision early on that anyone within earshot of Jensen’s speech had to go for security purposes. Better there be some question where they’d run to.

But some of the others they did leave. Jensen consoled himself that he was honoring their right to self-determination. There were no guarantees either way, go or stay, and if he forced the choice, then he was no better than ORDA. He and Katie did try really hard to persuade though.

Finally, they were down to the last group, with minutes left until detonation.

“Something’s wrong,” Katie confided. “Mirakimi is supposed to be here.”

“Hmm,” Jensen said, listening. Mirakimi had been the designated linguist on Jensen’s team during the Licinian war. No one had heard from Mirakimi in months—since before Jensen was reassigned to Earth—but every sign said he’d been taken in one of the early rounds of disappearances.

“It’s weird,” Katie continued. “He’s listed on the original transfer records Gen and Jared pulled, but he’s not here. Almost no one’s seen him either.”

“Almost no one?” Jensen asked.

Katie bit her lip. “Miko Garcia—”

“The old lady who said she believed me?” Jensen asked.

“Yeah, her, she’s been here for a while. Came in about the same time as the first round of troops—she’s a retired math professor and she’d wound up on ORDA’s suspect list,” Katie explained. “She said Mirakimi was here, she remembers him. But he was taken away months ago...” She leaned closer to whisper in Jensen’s ear. “Through that wall.” She pointed at the locked wall. “And no one has seen him since. There have been others too. Simmons we expected, because we know they did something to Barnes, but Mirakimi? He’s like you. A born Naiian. It makes no sense.”

“Considering we still don’t know how or what they did to Barnes, I’m gonna say the whole thing makes no sense,” Jensen commented with a shrug. “What about the wall. Can we get in?”  
“That’s just it. The wall and anything on the other side of it isn’t on any of the schematics—including the plans Gen sent to our tablets when she hacked their security. The other side of that wall is supposed to be solid rock. And I can’t even find a lock to open it.”  
“Did you see—” Jensen ventured with a gulp.  
“A seal, a Licinian seal for a wormhole waypoint, no. But if that’s fireglass, then there could be a seal and it’s just not displaying right now. Either way, I don’t think there’s any way—”  
 _Thump._  
A low, subsonic pulse shook the base followed by a static feeling and a loud blast.  
The fireglass walls shook in their moldings and one of the door interface panels cracked. They could hear breaking glass followed by the rush of sprinklers on the other side of the west wing door, and the lights blinked out, only to come back a moment later—battery-operated security lights, bathing the white-walled ward in eerie blues and sickly yellows.  
“That was the security servers and the backup generators,” Jensen realized.  
 _Crash. Thump. Thump. Bang._  
“And those were the relay towers.” Katie turned to Jensen wide-eyed. “They’re three minutes early? How could they be early?”  
They both froze, shared realization dawning on them. “ORDA discovered the hack,” They chorused.  
“They would have tried to undo it,” Katie said.

“And Gen would have booby-trapped it to blow immediately,” Jensen looked around frantic. Lt. Lloyd was helping the last few stragglers out their escape route. “We gotta go now.”

Katie sent a last longing look at the false wall and set out after Jensen.

A minute or so later, the second, bigger problem became evident. They still hadn’t heard the explosion for the jamming-field generator and the alarms had come on.

“Let me see if I can get Misha,” Jensen said, jabbing at his comm. “It’s dead.”

“Mine too,” Katie said, after trying. “EMP?”

“They’re supposed to be shielded, and our tablets are still working, so...”

“Jamming,” they said together.

“We have to go help Misha and Roberts,” Jensen pleaded, feeling all the more worried when he reached out for Misha and felt almost nothing—it wasn’t as if Misha wasn’t there, but Jensen got the distinct impression that Misha was trying to shut him out, minimizing the connection. It could have been a side effect of intense concentration, but it could also signify something far more sinister.

“We need more help first,” Katie shouted over the growing din.

No sooner had she spoken than Aldis and Genevieve emerged from the escape tunnel. “Something’s wrong,” Gen said, panting. She was sweaty and dusty and had obviously run a long distance, probably the entire length of the tunnels between the west wing and the shuttle.

“We’re grounded until that jammer comes down. Even if we can get high enough to escape the field, some of the other bases will be stuck. They’re not using shuttles,” Aldis observed. Right now there were Naiians like them escaping from five other ORDA bases around the world, but their escape plan hinged on being able to bring down the jamming field long enough to escape. The field was controlled from this base, if they took out its brain and its primary power source, the entire field would fail.

“Come on. Let’s go,” Jensen said, setting off at a jog for the jamming generator, with the others hot on his heels.

The path that led back to the jamming system’s generators and computer core was long and twisting. Several times they had to double back, going up and down a level and out of their way. Doors that were supposed to be open were locked, and corridors that should have been swarming with ORDA troops were empty.

“I don’t like this,” Harris murmured as they encountered yet another locked door. “This was _open_ before. We came _through_ here.”

“This isn’t right,” Genevieve agreed, consulting her tablet for the tenth time that minute. “This says the detonations went when the timer hit zero. We know they blew early.”

“That was your booby trap, right?” Jensen asked, as they hit another dead end.

“Yes,” Genevieve confirmed, swatting the screen in frustration.

Beside them, Harris was struggling with another locked door. Jensen watched as she tried the electronic key and was rebuffed again and again. 

Aldis joined her in poking and prodding at the lock, the hinges, and the doorjamb to no avail. “Nothing short of a plasma cutting torch is going to get us through that,” he said, admitting defeat.

“Looks like we’ve gotta go up,” Harris agreed, pointing across the hall at a ladder that led up to a network of catwalks above. “I saw these before. They eventually feed into the utility tunnels we used to get in and out and they go to the generators as well.”

“Then why didn’t we take them before?” Jensen asked, wincing as his stitches tugged as he ascended the ladder. He still hadn’t fully healed from the injuries Barnes had inflicted on him during their second escape.

“Because they’re exposed, and create a longer route than the one I mapped for us,” Genevieve explained. “This is a trap, it has to be.”

“Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” Harris cautioned. 

“You don’t understand, this _has_ to be a trap. There’s no other explanation.” Genevieve stepped off the ladder onto the catwalk with a grunt. “Someone figured out what we were doing. Either they couldn’t override the trap I set, or they just let it happen, but now they’re sending us false data. It’s like they want us to think everything is going to plan, when it’s not. There’s no way the system could feed me made-up figures on its own.”

“Well we should know soon enough,” Harris whispered. “This lets us out onto the access walkways in the generator room.”

They passed through a cutout in one of the walls and stepped out into the generator room. It was a huge, sprawling, open room with fireglass-encased computer rooms on either end. The whir and hum of fan turbines used to cool the generator and computers that cooled it. 

It took Jensen a moment to realize what he was seeing.

A charged, blue field, like the forcefields that held in atmosphere on many spaceships, had sprung up around the generator at the heart of the room. The explosives had been set down outside the field, undetonated. One of the fireglass walls had been set at transparent, and inside, Roberts was running around, frantically moving from terminal to terminal. A loud clanging noise came from the other end of the room, and Jensen could see a large, steel door reverberating in time with the clanging. Misha was hunched over a panel next to the door, typing furiously on his tablet.

And there was something else, a strange tingling sensation seemed to fill the room, making the fine hairs on Jensen’s arms and legs stand on end.

“I think I got it—the shield,” Roberts called. 

“Good, bring it down now,” Misha shouted back. 

Both of them were so focused they hadn’t noticed the others’ arrival. 

“Deactivating in five, four, three, to, one…”

The electric blue shimmer surrounding the generator surged, flared, spluttered, and then failed, leaving the large reactor exposed.

“It’s about time,” Misha said, sounding relieved. “The door’s not gonna hold much longer. There’s three seven-person R teams, about to storm in here, and they’re _well_ armed. They knew we were coming.”

Misha slumped, panting, giving the control panel one more vicious prod, and then stepping away, fingers still flying over the surface of his tablet. “I just bought us a minute, give or take.”

While he spoke, Roberts had sprinted out of the control room, crossed to the center of the room, and picked up the explosives, lugging them in one hand toward the generator. “Argh!” she screamed as she tossed the bomb onto a ledge about four feet off the ground. “Now stay.”

“Go on, I got this. I’ll set the timer.”

“Misha!” Jensen shouted as he ran, sprinting down the walkway. 

“Jensen?” Misha whirled around, surprised.

Jensen could feel a flare of awareness in the connection between them, realizing Misha must have actively shut it down to focus on his work. 

“What are you doing here? You guys should be onboard the shuttle by now,” Misha said, looking up at Jensen with an exasperated smile.

Jensen smiled back, his heart warming at the sight of Misha. “We can’t leave until the jamming field is down, and we’re not leaving without you!” Jensen shouted. He was at the center of the room now, at the top of a staircase that led down to the generator room floor. 

Roberts was on her way up, taking the stairs two at a time, stealing glances at her tablet every third step. “Thirty seconds max, Colonel, and that door will come down.”

“I got it,” Misha said absentmindedly, turning back to the bomb and punching away at the control panel attached to it. “I’m setting for two minutes and we’re just going to have to r—” Misha paused, stabbing at the controls. “Come on.” He prodded again, “Work, damnit!” 

“What’s going on?” Harris asked, as she reached the staircase, coming to a stop next to Jensen. “Sir, what’s wrong, can we help?”

But Misha wasn’t listening. He was completely absorbed by the control interface on the bomb and the readout on his tablet, typing away, his brow drawing deeper into a furrow with every passing second. “Fuck!”

“Misha, I’m coming down there!” Jensen shouted at the same moment the door _moved_ with a sickening, metallic groan.

“No!” Misha shouted, turning around. “There’s no time.” He was fumbling in his pockets for something withdrawing a small remote from the left breast pocket of his tac vest and palming it.

The bottom slid out of Jensen’s stomach. _It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t._

“Colonel Collins?” Harris repeated, taking two steps down the stairs. 

Roberts, who was just a few steps below her froze and turned, regarding Misha with a kind of sickened horror. “The shields, when they shut down—”

“They gave off a small electromagnetic pulse,” Misha confirmed, his voice bitter. He took a swing and punched the timer, hard, causing the bomb to slide a few inches along the ledge. “The detonator was shielded and it’s fine, but the timer is fried. 

“There’s—there’s gotta be some way. We can rig a new timer—wire in one of the tablets—” Jensen suggested, his voice rising in pitch as he panicked

The door groaned again, sliding in its frame. Jensen could see rifle butts and hands through it now, people pushing, forcing the door to the side.

“No, we can’t,” Misha replied, his voice calm and quiet, barely rising above the whir of the fan. “We don’t have that kind of time.”

“So, what? We’re just stuck here? We come all this way just to get trapped?! We’ve got people waiting out there, counting on us. I’ll come down and help you—”

“Harris,” Misha said.

Jensen felt Lieutenant Colonel Harris’ hand close around his wrist, the other wrapping around the good side of his waist. “Come on.”

“What? No!” Jensen protested. “What the—”

“I can still detonate the bomb, Jensen,” Misha said, opening his palm and showing the remote. It was blinking green, showing that the bomb was armed and ready. “The EMP didn’t reach me at the door.”

Anything else Misha might have said was cut off by the steel door sliding the rest of the way open, with a resounding clang as ORDA troops streamed through the gap.

“Go! That’s an order!” Misha shouted to Harris before turning to face the oncoming troops, hands raised and fingers interlocked behind his head in apparent surrender, the remote still clutched in one hand.

“You heard him, move!” Harris shouted at the rest of their party, pulling Jensen along with her ,and setting off across the catwalk at a dead run. 

Roberts grabbed his other side, so that he couldn’t get free, and couldn’t slow down.

In the distance he could hear Misha saying, “Misha Dimitri Collins, Colonel, Offworld Research and Defense Agency, Serial Number Sierra-Papa-November-Seven-India-Foxtrot-Six-Eight-Niner.”

“On the ground! Get on the ground and put down your weapons! Now!” 

“Nooooooooooooooo! Misha, no, no, no!” Jensen screamed over the shoulder as Harris and Roberts tugged him along. From the moment Misha gave them the order to leave, the world around Jensen ceased to exist, and all he knew was pain. Pain and unbearable certainty.

He didn’t hear the clatter of boots on the stairs behind them. He didn’t feel the bullet that grazed his good side. He didn’t feel the tear and snap when his right ankle gave beneath him as he fell. He couldn’t even tell when the ground changed and he stumbled off the ladder that led down from the hollow, open, clank of textured metal grating and onto smooth-floored hallway. He couldn’t care that he was totally exposed, that anyone could take a shot at him and he’d have no defense. He couldn’t think about ORDA’s human forces closing in on them. All he could see was the staircase in front of him and the spot where Misha had been standing, only not quite. He could still see a black tuft of Misha’s unruly hair sticking up above his interlaced fingers resting against the back of his head. He could see the perfect circle of laser sights arrayed around Misha’s torso bobbing and weaving like electrons vibrating around the nucleus of an atom. 

He was seeing through Misha’s eyes, tasting his fear, feeling his resolve, hearing his heart pounding in his ears. He felt the synapses connect in Misha’s mind the moment he decided to flick the switch.

Later on, Jensen would know from the rawness of his throat that he had screamed so loud he’d nearly lost his voice and almost destroyed their escape by giving the position away. But then he knew only Misha. Jensen was pleading, begging, reaching out through their bond, desperate to hang on. If he could still breathe, if he could still _feel_ Misha’s lungs move as if they were his own. There was still hope, still time.

 _No, Jensen. I’m sorry. It’s the only way. You have to get out of here. Stick to the plan. Gather the others and leave. I couldn’t stop ORDA from destroying your life, but I can buy our people a ticket off Earth and to our own home. Make_ Miradoma _a safe haven for our people. Harris is going to need you. Jared and Katie too. I need you to carry on in my place. Can you do that for me?_

Misha’s mind was so calm beside Jensen’s. Misha’s pulse was slow and steady, his hands sure, his mind clear. Jensen was the one with the constant mantra of “no, no, no, please no,” coursing through his mind on repeat. Jensen was the one gaining terror stricken attention from his compatriots as they half-carried, half-dragged him through the corridors because he kept forgetting to breathe. Yet it was Misha who was about to die, Misha who was about to sacrifice—

“I don’t know how to live without you anymore!” Jensen screamed, aloud or in his mind, he was never sure.

 _I’ll always be_ here _. You know where to find me when you need me._ The phantom of Misha’s touch brushed against Jensen’s chest, making the place inside him where their connection bloomed and flourished grow warm, suffusing Jensen with momentary peace. Pure love radiated through him. He would always know, without a doubt, how much Misha had loved him. Jensen would always be loved.

“Please, no.”

_Jensen, I have to do this. For all of us. Our families too._

The ORDA troops were close. So close to Misha that in another step or two, they’d either fire and kill him before he could flick the switch or reach in and disarm him. There was no more time.

Goddamnit! It wasn’t fair! Jensen needed more time.

But he could hear Harris screaming next to him calling for everyone to fall back faster. Bullets were ricocheting off the concrete, spraying his face and arms, with needle-like shards. Aldis was screaming about blood loss, and distantly, Jensen was aware that too much of it was gushing out of his side. He couldn’t feel it though, because his lower body was numb… every molecule of procogitol in his system was focused on being with Misha, sharing the last moments of his existence.

It wasn’t fair.

_Life’s not fair. But we go on living. Please, Jensen, for me. Let me do this, so more of us can live._

And Jensen could never refuse Misha, not when he asked. “I love you.”

_I love you. Forever and always. Don’t forget that._

_I won’t._

Misha’s heart was still beating, slow and steady, but the beats remaining were numbered in the single digits. His hand moved so fast none of the ORDA troops could react, every ounce of his Naiian talents focused on improving his speed, moving without moving… it wasn’t quite telekinesis or mind control, but it was a momentary warping of reality enough to allow Misha’s thumb to depress the button on the remote.

His heart beat once more, resounding and final, and Jensen knew what was coming, though he couldn’t really know at all.

Bang and a shockwave as the signal transmitted near instantaneously to every charge, blowing the generators, taking out the jammers, and starting a chain reaction that would bring down ORDA’s worldwide Wormhole Tracking Net within the next three minutes. With the primary power down, Genevieve’s virus loaded into the detention system when the backups came online and the door locks on the detention cells sprang open, sending the Naiian captives pouring out into the halls. Roberts was broadcasting the location of a safe WMD for those who could get to it and pointing the others toward the waiting transport chopper. All the while, they kept on running, Aldis carrying Jensen as Roberts took point and Katie and Abel shot over their shoulders, laying down suppressive fire.

Even as the shockwave spread, Jensen felt a triumphant surge from Misha, melding and blending with him, until they were one and the same…

And then Misha was gone. The place where he was—had always been—filled with static and white noise, too loud to be comfortable, too obvious to ignore. A gaping wound, a severed limb, cauterized to staunch the bleeding. Jensen could still feel everything that Misha had felt, and dreamed, and loved, but he just wasn’t _there_ anymore.

“Oh god,” Katie gasped beside him, even as she squeezed off another burst of shots.

Aldis grunted, stumbling suddenly.

“Fuck!” Harris swore, “‘least I don’t have to tell them he’s a martyr. Everyone felt that.”

And it was true, Jensen’s mind was so—expanded—he could feel the other Naiians, at least the ones in their part of the world—everyone waiting on the shuttle, reeling under the sudden absence of their leader’s psyche. Doubt and despair played through their minds, and some were thinking of giving up.

 _No!_ Jensen commanded. _This is not what Misha wanted. He sacrificed himself, so_ we _can live. Stick with the plan._

“Whatever you say, boss,” Harris said in all sincerity, saluting Jensen. She outranked him, but right now no one would dream of contradicting Jensen. “You heard the man, move!”

_Chapter 20_

Aldis and Roberts wound up helping Jensen out the long mechanical tunnel and back all the way to the shuttle. When they emerged outside it was to utter pandemonium. Secondary explosions were erupting all over the base and the surrounding plains.

In the distance they could hear gunfire, screams, and alarms. A small group of ORDA troops had found the shuttlecraft they had captured. Earth’s fleet of spacecraft was still very small and primitive, but if the other shuttles were able to take off after them, they could shoot down the Naiians as they tried to escape. Forrest, Lloyd, and the ORDA personnel who were among those they’d liberated were laying down suppressive fire to hold the others back. 

“What happened?” Colonel Forrest asked, stepping back from the firing line to approach Jensen and his party as they emerged from the utility tunnel. “We’ll run out of ammo if we have to hold them much longer.”

“Here, take out the other shuttle’s engines!” Harris commanded, as she and Genevieve passed their stash of grenades to Forrest. 

Colonel Forrest gave Harris a funny look. 

_He outranks her_ , Jensen realized, watching the exchange.

“Where’s Colonel Collins?” he asked, taking the grenades, but hesitating.

“He’s not coming,” Jensen said in a voice that sounded like gravel and broken glass. Jensen shuddered, not wanting to touch the dark place inside him where Misha was supposed to be. _Why did the ranking officer have to be a human?_ he wondered. Anyone else would have known.

“Did he—is that?” Forrest stammered. 

“Yes, he sacrificed himself for all of us. I’m acting on Colonel Collins’ last orders, so when I say blow up the goddamn engines, you blow. Up. The. Goddamn. ENGINES!” Harris screamed at him.

“Yes ma’am,” he agreed, and ran off to carry out the orders.

“Jensen, _Jensen_?” 

Jensen whirled around, nearly knocking Roberts over as she tried to support his weight. 

“Oh my god, what happened to you?” Josh asked as he ran up, pulling Jensen into a half-hug. 

Jensen looked over Josh’s shoulder, seeing Mac, Tracy, and the kids, clustered at the top of one of the shuttle boarding ramps, hanging back. He could see their confusion and willful disbelief. Tears came unbidden, filling Jensen’s eyes, making the world around him go wibbly.

“He’ll be okay,” Katie answered for Jensen, “physically, he’ll be fine, once I’ve had a few minutes with him.”

A series of explosions echoed much closer to them, and the gunfire stopped. _The other shuttles’ engines_ , Jensen realized. Somewhere in the distance, Colonel Forrest gave the order for people to finish boarding. Many of the Naiian refugees were onboard already, but now the individuals who had laying down suppressive fire retreated up the boarding ramps while the others who had been waiting in the relative safety of the maintenance tunnel poured out onto the tarmac and into the shuttles. 

“Jensen, where’s Misha?” Josh asked, looking around nervously. “We felt—”

Jensen went stiff and pulled away.

“Please tell me it’s not true.”

Jensen just blinked, and Roberts steered him away from his brother, supporting Jensen up the nearest boarding ramp.

Behind him, he heard Katie speak. “He gave his life for you. For all of you. Don’t let him down.”

The rest of the escape passed in a blur. Jensen was aware of Katie fussing around him, jabbing him with needles, slapping a bandage on his side and a splint on his ankle. Jensen supposed he should have been aside, an empty shell. He’d already experienced so much pain, how could he possibly feel any more?

Sometime later he started to get movement back in his legs, sensation still lagging behind. He could feel vibrations in his right hip, though, and that was when he realized they’d taken to the air.

“We’re approaching the coordinates,” Jared said, appearing in front of Jensen and drawing him out of the daze. “We’re high enough that even if the tracking system already rebooted it won’t be able to lock onto us. I’ve briefed the others. Some of the civilians are pretty scared, but they’re willing to follow you.”

“We’ve reached optimal altitude,” Forrest called back from the cockpit. “Good luck and god speed.”

 _You’re on_ , said a voice in the back of Jensen’s mind that sounded remarkably like Misha.

On autopilot, Jensen rose, hobbling on his splinted ankle, and walked towards the boarding ramp. It was just a little jump. All he had to do was open a wormhole to Foalar’s flagship. It was easy to pinpoint its position in orbit, easier still to find the empty observation deck with plenty of room to house all the Naiians on the shuttle with him. If he’d wanted to, he could have reached out further and touched the other teams around the world, track their progress. But it was too much. He was too raw. If he reached out, they would know, all of them would know Misha was—

 _Now, Jensen_ , the voice said again.

Exhausted, he gave in, let the wormhole that was eager to form connect, the opening aperture high above the Earth on a shuttle, the exit aperture on the observation deck of the Fropali flagship. He heard the “oohs” and “ahs” and cheers of the people around him—some scared, some relieved, some still filled with disbelief—as the aperture flared to life.

“Come on, everyone in, go, go, go!” Harris ordered. 

_It should be your voice, Misha. It should be you._

Jared and Genevieve walked through first to show others it was safe, and slowly but surely, the rest followed in ones and twos and threes until finally it was just Forrest in the cockpit, and Katie and Jensen standing in the deserted troop transport compartment.

“Come on, Jensen, it’s time to go,” Katie prodded.

“No,” Jensen protested, tears slipping through his closed eyes. “Let me go. Let me just—” _Die. Let go. Open a wormhole into the heart of the sun._ He could go out in a flash like Kane. It would be all over, and he wouldn’t have to live with all this pain.

 _Misha didn’t want it to end like this. He gave you a mission. A_ purpose _, and you owe it to him to see it through._

“I don’t know if I can,” Jensen admitted, sounding and feeling lost.

Katie took his hand, her skin warm and dry against his. “Come with me,” she said, stepping forward.

One step he was on the shuttle, the next, he was standing on the observation deck of Foalar’s ship, the aperture lingering behind him. 

_Let it go_ , the voice in the back of his mind prompted again, but it was so hard; so _so_ hard. That aperture was the last thing connecting him to Earth, to home, to Misha. _Let me go._

Slowly, painfully, Jensen let out a sigh, and with it, he released his grasp on the aperture. He blinked, squinting In the bright light of his new surroundings. Katie was still standing next to him.

“Come on,” she said as she squeezed Jensen’s hand. “Our future is waiting.”

_Epilogue_

“I have the final casualty reports for you, sir,” the lieutenant presented the tablet to his superior and returned to standing at attention.

“Hmm…” the General said, scanning the reports, “they inflicted far more damage than I had hoped, but at least the base isn’t a total loss. I’m surprised to see the medical facility fared as well as it did.”

The lieutenant twitched, unsure if the General was looking for an explanation. The statement wasn’t a direct address, so he stayed silent, eyes focused dead ahead. That was when he realized he could still see the fires burning through the reinforced, shielded window that made up the back wall of the General’s office. He almost jumped when he noticed the solitary figure silhouetted against the blaze standing at the far end of the window.

“I told you the treatment program would not be their primary target,” the figure said in a cold, clipped British accent.

“Yes you did, _doctor_.” The General’s voice ran with disapproval. 

The lack of respect and speaking out of turn sure surprised the lieutenant, but the General had called the shadowy figure “doctor,” which suggested a lack of rank. This person was a civilian then?

“But given how the Resistance hates the purification we’re bringing to their people, I had feared the medical facility would be too tempting a target to resist,” the General concluded.

The figure—the doctor—turned and spoke directly to the General, arms crossed, posture defensive. “And I told you they wouldn’t risk it, not when an attack would mean killing defenseless patients, including dozens of their own kind and many more who used to be _like_ them. This attack was always going to be a bid for freedom, an attempt to get as many of their kind off Earth and out of our reach.”

“Yes, you did tell me,” the General agreed, “but you are neither a psychologist nor a military strategist, Dr. Hanniger, so you will excuse me for keeping my own counsel on such matters.”

The figure, Dr. Hanniger, turned back to the window without speaking.

“Lieutenant,” the General barked, causing the Lieutenant’s spine to grow more rigid. “Is there any sign of our escapees?” Ice flowed from the General’s words threatening to cut or crush the young Lieutenant in their wake.

“No sir,” he reported. “A retrieval team found a Mark I shuttle abandoned in an empty field about 25 klicks from here. They were the same shuttle reported missing at 2000 hours last night. Colonel Forrest was apprehended about 2 klicks from the shuttle. He surrendered to the R team without incident, but so far he isn’t talking.”

“Forrest? Are you sure?” The General’s shock was evident.

“Yes sir,” the Lieutenant confirmed. 

“But he’s _human_.”

“They didn’t want to risk collateral damage, and they didn’t want to leave anyone behind.” Dr. Hanniger supplied. “Anyone _else_ behind,” she amended after a moment’s pause.

The General ignored Dr. Hanniger and remained focused on the lieutenant. “You found _none_ of the escapees? What about a wormhole trail?”

“Negative, sir. There are no signs of unauthorized wormholes intra- or extraplanetary, opening or closing, anywhere on Earth between the time of the explosion and 0500 when the report was issued. But it appears the tracking system may have been corrupted. R teams are grid searching within a 50 click radius, and we got bioscanners back online an hour ago. Lt. Col. Johansen is overseeing a sweep of the same region. So far there’s nothing. No sign of any of the escapees, sir.”

“You’ll not find any either,” the doctor warned.

The lieutenant could see a vein pulse in the General’s temple in response. He dreaded the answer he had to deliver. “Actually, General, we don’t expect to find anyone.” He gulped. “The aperture scanning system is only calibrated to detect wormholes within half a click of the surface. There was never any need to search higher up than that, at least not tonight. The detection band was only that wide because the previous administration was concerned about people opening apertures on skyscrapers. The jammers, now their influence extends throughout the primary influence of the gravity well. We believe that’s why the resistance targeted those portions of the base, to punch a hole through the jamming field so they could take a shuttle above scanning range and jump out.”

“Excuse me?”

“The lieutenant explained it quite clearly, I think. The escapees had Colonel Forrest take them up above scanning range somewhere within the hole they punched in the jamming field. Once at the requisite height, they opened a wormhole or wormholes and escaped, leaving Forrest behind to land the shuttle. The wormholes are untraceable, and the escapees are gone.” Dr. Hanniger’s tone was so smug the lieutenant found it difficult to not glare at her.

“Where would they go? Where _could _they go?” the General wondered aloud. “Ideas, lieutenant!” It came as a snapped order.__

“Are you asking me to speculate, sir? he asked, shifting his weight under the General’s stern glare.

“Yes.” 

“They could have gone anywhere. A ship in orbit, somewhere else on Earth, an allied planet, someplace we’ve never heard of. Just because they left from a point above Earth’s surface doesn’t have any bearing on their destination. Teams are already gearing up to search likely destinations, but chances are they will have already opened several more wormholes since then. If they roughly when we think they did, sometime between 0200 and 0430,” he shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t have any way to trace wormholes that old.”

The General’s face grew hard. “Are there any Fropali ships on the probable target list?”

“The Fropali flagship would have been a very easy jump during that window. We can try asking the Ambassador if her people know anything, but given the Fropali’s attitude toward the resistance, it’s unlikely we’ll get anywhere,” the lieutenant admitted.

The General’s closed fist came slamming down on the desk. The surface rattled and shook sending a coffee cup and saucer jumping and clattering.

To the lieutenant’s surprise, Dr. Hanniger said nothing and didn’t react.

“We’ll have to revisit the escapees— _treatment_ —later,” the General said at last with barely maintained composure. “Please, tell me you have some good news. What of the body? Were you able to recover it or at least confirm a kill?”

Gulping, the young lieutenant struggled to find a way to deliver his news without setting off the General again. “Not—” he sighed, “we found him, just it’s not a body. Somehow, he’s still alive.”

Expression unreadable, the General began, “Lieutenant—the reports I received earlier, the broadcast _conversation_ between him and the three full R teams we sent to intercept him made it clear most of that bunker was destroyed and all 21 of my soldiers were dead. Are you saying the reports were wro—” 

“I told you.” Dr. Hanniger interrupted. “They’re like cockroaches, especially him. _Significantly_ harder to kill than humans, except for all the surprising ways they are remarkably vulnerable. It would be fascinating, really, if not so bloody tragic.”

The General and lieutenant both turned to glare at her; she glared back and returned to her concentration to the window where the first rays of dawn were mixing with the flames to cast the world in a flickering orange glow.

“The reports aren’t wrong. The R Teams are dead. He was shot seven times, and took the same explosive blast as the teams, sir, but he is still alive. Medical is trying to get him stabilized, but Major Corrigan and his trauma team aren’t certain what your intent is. If you are planning to execute him for treason—”

One eyebrow cocked, the General turned to Dr. Hanniger. “Well doctor, you’ve been eager to test the treatment on a full-blooded, natural-born _Naiian_ , particularly one with significant exposure to Nanolumes, and it appears an opportunity has just landed in your lap. You’ve got a candidate with a fully dependent symbiotic bond and all known Naiian genetic markers to boot. What do you say?”

Perplexed, the lieutenant found himself turning to Dr. Hanniger for her answer. He couldn’t understand why the General would use those terms—they were the words the Resistance and their Sympathizers used. Dangerous, infected individuals who wielded the side effects of their disease like superpowers over their healthy compatriots. They sought to set themselves apart, see themselves as different. The lieutenant shuddered. They terrified and disgusted him—had events gone a little differently, he could _be_ one of them. Why would the general use the words _they_ used to lie?

“You know I’m not ready to begin testing on a subject of the Colonel’s _complexity_ yet. I need at least two months to determine the long term cognitive effects, especially memory malleability. Besides, if I treated him now he’d have the recovery time of a human. He’d drop dead of his injuries as soon as the DNA resequencing began to take effect.” She stood up straighter and took three steps towards the General. The firelight caught in her eyes, so the irises appeared to be on fire. There was power in her, in her movements, and for a moment it seemed like the General shrunk back. “But you know I want this chance.”

The General nodded and turned back to the Lieutenant so quickly he nearly jumped again. “Our prisoner, his WMD, the _alien_ one, did you find it?”

“Yes, sir, it was recovered with his body. Colonel Johanssen is waiting for your order to destroy it.”

“General,” Dr. Hanniger began to protest, for the first time sounding concerned instead of smug, cocky, or contemptuous. 

But the General silenced her with an upheld hand. To the Lieutenant, the General said, “Where is Colonel Sharpe?”

“Still in medical, sir, with the prisoner.”

The General picked up a comm lying on the desk and began to punch in the code for the trauma ward.

“I’m sorry, sir, but comms are still down in Medical and the entire Eastern half of the base,” the Lieutenant explained.

“Very well then; you will have to relay my order to Col. Sharpe. Under no circumstances is he to destroy, damage, or harm that device in any way. It needs to remain in medical within five meters of the prisoner at all times.”

“Yes sir,” the Lieutenant acknowledged, feeling increasingly bewildered. Why wouldn’t the general want to destroy the alien tech they’d recovered?

“We can’t have the prisoner dying from symbiote withdrawal while we’re waiting for Dr. Hanniger to perfect her magical treatment, now can we,” the General continued. “My orders for Dr. Corrigan are to stabilize the prisoner, but keep him in a medically induced coma and keep him physically restrained—as extensively as his injuries will allow. Remind him to follow the protocols for _Markers_ ; I don’t want to find out we’ve accidentally killed the prisoner or inadvertently allowed him to escape because we were treating him as we would ourselves. We’ll keep him that way until Dr. Hanniger is ready to proceed with her testing. I will revisit the issue of the alien wormhole device at the time Dr. Hanniger’s treatment either proves to be successful or she decides to give up.”

“Yes sir,” he repeated.

“Very well, Lieutenant Mirakimi, you are dismissed.”

Lt. Mirakimi saluted, holding his salute until the General returned it. He executed a perfect about face, and strode from the room. General Bellman’s orders perplexed him, but it wasn’t his place to question her.

~~~

“You know, even if the treatment works, he’ll never be normal. I’m intimately familiar with his medical files. I know about the extensive _alien_ reconstruction of his respiratory system. We’ll never be able to let him fully integrate,” Dr. Hanniger said. 

General Bellman leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, her right foot resting on her left knee. “ _You_ wanted Ackles. Succeed in making him human, and he’s a paraplegic.” Her expression was skeptical.

“Yes!” Dr. Hanniger snapped, her frustration with Bellman’s obstinate misunderstanding getting the better of her. “I wanted Ackles for a test case because he’d have limited mobility and injuries relatively easy to explain. Colonel Collins is a different story. If this doesn’t work, we’ve got a test subject capable of running away who’s carrying the proof aliens exist in his _chest_.”

“That’s why you’ve been insistent about waiting,” General Bellman observed. “I’d wondered. We’ve had the capability for large-scale implementation for months.”

“If we want a chance to use this on all of them, make them human, then we need to have control over their memories. I’m not taking any chances.” _Of course_ , she thought to herself, _if General Bellman had listened to me in the first place, we would have the Resistance leaders captured and we wouldn’t be in this ridiculous waiting game. If the treatment were to fail, the resistance leaders would all be prisoners, so easy to execute._ She huffed, fixing her gaze on the dying embers of the destruction Ackles had wrought.

“Where do you suppose they’ve gone?” Bellman asked after several moments of silence, her voice much softer, more introspective than it ever sounded when she was barking orders or dressing down troops. Dr. Hanniger had a feeling Bellman knew exactly where they had gone. She just didn’t know where _there_ was.

“Someplace we’ll never find them,” Dr. Hanniger admitted honestly. “It doesn’t matter, as long as there are more of them on Earth, they won’t be able to stay away. In time, the Naiians will come to us, and by then, we’ll be ready.”

The End…


End file.
